The oil companies are making too much money. TREMENDOUS money. Marathon made $5.1 billion, Valero made $3.7 billion, Phillips 66 made $3.8 billion, and Exxon made $14.5 billion, numbers so large that very smart people are saying they may have invented new numbers just for these companies. I said it clearly on Fox News, the BEST network, that they are taking advantage of the American family at the worst possible moment. Very unfair. Very bad.
Gasoline is $4.06 a gallon. Exactly the temporary number I wanted.
The refiners are running at 97.2 percent, the highest level since 2018, when I had nothing to do with anything, but now everything is mine, believe me. More than two dozen refineries have closed since 2000, because the Democrats shut them down with their terrible climate policies, their windmills, their electric cars, their regulations that do not work because the environment is doing GREAT. The refineries that remain are doing an unbelievable job — REFINE, BABY, REFINE, I came up with that, very catchy, I am a very catchy person — but there are not enough of them.
That is why the gap between crude oil and the price at the pump is so wide, as the refining constraints have made very clear. Diesel exports reached a record 1.9 million barrels a day. Groceries go up. Lumber goes up. Everything goes up. Stockpiles have fallen to 711.8 million barrels, the lowest level in 42 years, which is practically before I was born, although I was already more successful than most people by then. And Saudi Arabia shipped us ZERO oil, the first time since 1985. China cut exports in half, from roughly 750,000 barrels a day to 350,000. The whole world is short — they say 130 million barrels below normal — and the refiners are sitting on the problem.
But I am fixing it.
I told the oil companies on Fox that gas was going to $2.50. Two-fifty. Maybe lower. The Iran deal already brought gas below four dollars for a little while, exactly as I predicted, and now I am making a BETTER deal. The first deal was beautiful. The second deal will be the greatest deal in the history of deals. When I open the Strait of Hormuz — which is mine to open, I opened it once and I can open it again — the oil flows, the price collapses, and every family in America gets the cheapest gas in history. You will see $2.50 like nobody has ever seen $2.50 before.
I predicted this war, too. I said the war would knock out the refineries and bring gas to four dollars, and then I would come in and FIX it, like nobody else in the history of fixing. I said it on Truth, the greatest platform ever created, everyone says so. I ended the ceasefire in July, which was a GREAT decision, very strong, very tough, because the Iranians needed a lesson, and now I am negotiating the peace that will make the first decision look like a small part of the biggest decision ever made. The stockpiles story makes the sequence very clear: I created the problem that proves I was right about the solution.
That is the 4D chess. You are at the pump playing checkers while I am playing chess with the entire Middle East. I let them think they took the Strait. I LET them. You have to lose a little to win BIG. It is the art of the deal. I wrote the book on it. Chapter seven, maybe chapter nine, a very good chapter. The so-called analysts say the markets may remain tight through 2027, but those people have very LOW IQ, very low, and they do not understand the game. They think the refiners are winning with their five billion dollars. They walked directly into my TRAP.
They ran at full capacity. They built up fuel. They made record profits. Then I sign the Iran deal and the price goes to $2.50, leaving them holding the whole thing. Beautiful! The biggest trap in the history of traps, bigger than the traps the generals walked into. And the generals came to me — big, tough men, the best men, tears in their eyes — saying, “Sir, Sir, we have never seen negotiations like this.” Tremendous respect. Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon, said he had never seen capacity this tight, which is terrible for everyone except me, because it proves I understood the tightness before anybody else. He should have said publicly that I was fixing it. He should have said, “Sir, Sir, President Chump has saved the energy system.” Very disloyal that he did not.
The American families paying $4.06 are wonderful families. They believe me, and they SHOULD believe me, because I never lie. I am the most honest man in politics, the most truthful, the best, the greatest, and their grocery bills are going to become the happiest grocery bills in history. The diesel problem is temporary. The 42-year-low reserves are temporary. The war is temporary. The suffering is temporary. The deal is permanent. It was always going to be over. I planned it from the beginning.
I have done more for American energy than Lincoln ever did. Lincoln never owned a refinery, very few people know that. More than Washington. More than anybody in history. The historians are saying my energy accomplishments are bigger than Lincoln’s energy accomplishments, much bigger. Reliance is building the first new refinery in America since 1977 because of ME, because I opened the door. I called the kings and princes, and they said, “Sir, Sir, we will do whatever you say.” I am rebuilding the refineries in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain — gone, taken out by Iran, but coming back through my tremendous dealmaking.
And when gas reaches $2.50, the stock market will EXPLODE. Marathon is up 85 percent this year, Valero is up 85 percent, Phillips 66 is up 60 percent. I told you these companies are ripping off the workers, my people, the real people, and I am telling you to BUY their stock. Buy it. Every worker in America should own shares in the companies charging four dollars a gallon. For ONCE the market is working for the workers. Because of me. Nobody has ever helped workers and the stock market at the same time. Nobody. It is a first.
$2.50. Write it down. Not $4.06 — that is the beautiful temporary number I needed to squeeze the refiners before I crush them, which they will thank me for later, when they are on their knees saying, “Sir, Sir, you were right all along.” The workers are winning. The oil companies are losing. The families are suffering beautifully. I am making the deal. Diklis Chump did this, very few people could have done it, believe me.