Trump touts higher oil prices as his team struggles over Hormuz access

Summary

President Donald Trump has begun portraying higher oil prices as something the United States can profit from, even as the Iran conflict continues to disrupt energy supplies and push up gasoline costs for American drivers, the Associated Press reported. The pivot marks a reversal from the message Trump previously delivered about keeping energy prices low, including remarks he made while addressing gas prices in recent public comments.

The change comes as Trump’s team has faced pressure to manage a volatile energy market without a clear, publicly described path for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint for tanker traffic moving oil and natural gas. The Associated Press said most tankers have been avoiding the strait and that the uncertainty has contributed to sharp swings in benchmark crude prices.

On Thursday, Trump said on his social media site, “The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” according to the Associated Press report. The pivot highlights a tension in Trump’s messaging: as U.S. energy costs have risen, his comments have moved away from emphasizing consumer affordability and toward portraying price increases as advantage for producers and the broader economy.

The Associated Press report said the flip-flop also stands out against Trump’s earlier remarks, including his bragging in his State of the Union address about gas prices at $2.30 a gallon. The report said that figure has since risen more than 50% to a national average of $3.60 a gallon, according to AAA.

The report also described how political considerations could add urgency as the November midterm elections approach. Trump has said high gas prices helped him defeat his predecessor, Joe Biden, and he told reporters on Saturday that he had no worries about rising costs influencing voters this year, according to the Associated Press account.

Economists and market-watchers have tied the price surge to broader macroeconomic risks. Goldman Sachs said Thursday that, based on forecasts and historic experience, higher oil prices would raise inflation, slow growth and increase the unemployment rate by the end of the year, according to the Associated Press report.

The Associated Press said the situation has been worsened by the difficulty of moving tankers through Hormuz. Normally, about 20 million barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz each day, but the report said most tankers are avoiding it. It said benchmark oil prices swung sharply with the uncertainty, and on Thursday the global crude oil benchmark price jumped to $100 a barrel.

The report cited a warning from Oxford Economics analysts that the recent swings in Brent crude prices were “eye-catching” and that volatility would likely remain because of the lack of a timeline for when the conflict will deescalate and when the strait—described in the report as effectively closed—will see traffic recover.

The Associated Press also said Trump and his officials offered shifting messages about safety and potential military actions in the strait. In a Monday news conference, Trump said Hormuz “is going to remain safe,” the report said, even after it was identified as a danger zone, attributing confidence to the U.S. Navy and tanker insurance.

Then, by Tuesday, Trump said on Truth Social that Iran would face “Military consequences” that would be “at a level never seen before” if it placed mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Later, the Associated Press reported that he stressed that the U.S. military was blowing up Iran’s mine-laying ships.

The report also described a short-lived claim by Energy Secretary Chris Wright. It said Wright briefly posted that the U.S. Navy had escorted a tanker through the strait, then deleted the claim. On Wednesday, Trump had said “the straits are in great shape” and said he thought oil companies should use them, but the report said Wright could not provide a timeline for when tankers might be escorted.

Wright told CNBC that it would “happen relatively soon, but it can’t happen now,” according to the Associated Press report. He added, the report said, that military assets were focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities, while acknowledging the conflict was causing “a significant disruption” in short-term gas prices and arguing that the longer-term objective was an Iran that no longer poses a threat to the United States and Middle Eastern nations, as described in the AP account.

Alongside the shifting military and logistical messaging, the Trump administration has taken steps aimed at relieving supply constraints and stabilizing prices. Late on Thursday, the U.S. Treasury Department announced another step to free up Russian oil stranded on tankers at sea due to U.S. sanctions for its war on Ukraine, according to the Associated Press report. The Treasury move granted a license to waive those sanctions for a month, the report said, building on a prior decision giving India temporary permission to buy Russian oil.

The report said analysts estimated there were about 125 million barrels loaded on tankers at sea. It added that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent posted on X that the expanded waiver was a “narrowly tailored, short-term measure” and “would not provide significant financial benefit to the Russian government,” which he said derives the majority of its energy revenue from taxes assessed at the point of extraction.

The Associated Press report also said Trump changed his stance on strategic reserves. It described an earlier sequence in which the White House said it was looking at waiving Jones Act requirements to allow the use of U.S.-flagged ships for moving goods between U.S. ports. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the temporary move could ensure “vital energy products and agricultural necessities are flowing freely to U.S. ports,” as cited by the report.

The report said that followed a shift on Wednesday when Trump said the United States would join with other countries and release oil to lower prices. It said the coordinated release was unlikely to bring down oil prices so much as stabilize the market, and it quoted Joe Brusuelas, chief U.S. economist at consultancy RSM, saying, “Such a move will slow rather than stop rising oil prices and offer a temporary salve to the searing burn of rising gasoline prices,” in the AP account.

The Associated Press report framed the widening gap between Trump’s household-focused political messaging and his approach to Hormuz and the energy supply chain as a challenge facing his team at a precarious political moment. It said the effort to find a “silver lining” in higher oil prices is happening alongside uncertainty about when traffic through Hormuz can return to normal.