Trump Disputes Energy Chief’s Timeline for Lower Gas Prices

President Donald Trump on April 20 denied his energy secretary’s claim that gasoline prices in the United States may not fall below $3 a gallon until later this year or even 2027, while claiming relief will come when the war with Iran concludes.

“No, I think he’s wrong on that. Totally wrong,” Trump told The Hill’s White House correspondent Julia Manchester during a brief phone call Monday morning, contradicting Energy Secretary Christopher Wright, who made his comments in an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

“I don’t know,” Wright told Tapper after being asked when Americans should expect gas to fall below $3 again.

“That could happen later this year. That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked, and they’ll start going down,” he said.

The president told The Hill that prices would come down “as soon as this ends,” referring to the Iran war. 

Trump made similar comments in a televised appearance on Fox Business aired on April 15. 

“I think they’ll be much lower. Before midterms? Much lower,” he said, adding that on “assumption that we stop a country that cannot have a nuclear weapon … if you give Iran a nuclear weapon, you wanna see bad stock markets? You won’t have a country.”

Trump further said, “So, on the assumption we have that settled, hopefully long before that … when that’s settled, gas prices are going to go down tremendously.”

$4.04 Per Gallon

According to the American Automobile Association, gas prices stood at $4.04 per gallon on April 20. The highest recorded average price is approximately $5.02, recorded in 2022. 

Wright said prices would eventually fall to approximately $3 per gallon before the conflict roiled energy markets. 

“We will get back there, for sure,” he said.

Wright, however, told Tapper on March 8 that gas below $3 per gallon was “not a month’s thing,” but, rather, “in the worst case, a week’s thing.” 

US Blockade

The Strait of Hormuz is still effectively closed to commercial traffic, with U.S. forces seizing an Iranian-flagged cargo vessel on Sunday in the Gulf of Oman after it tried to go around the American blockade. 

“The blockade is very powerful, very strong,” Trump said on Monday in his phone call with The Hill. “They lose $500 million a day with the blockade up.” 

The conflict is escalating internationally, as the Treasury Department sent letters to financial institutions in China, Hong Kong, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates warning of secondary sanctions if they conducted business with the Iranian regime. 

Trump said he had received a letter from Chinese leader Xi Jinping assuring him that Beijing is currently not supplying weapons to Iran.