![]()
President Trump is demanding that gas companies lower prices immediately. The problem is that gas prices aren’t set by presidential decree. They are driven primarily by global crude oil prices, refining capacity, inventories, taxes, and competition.
This is reminiscent of President Biden blaming grocery stores and retailers for inflation. When prices are politically inconvenient, the temptation is always to blame the companies at the end of the supply chain.
Oil prices have fallen sharply over the past week, nearly erasing the “war premium” that followed the U.S.-Iran conflict. But that drop appears to be driven more by market sentiment than by a meaningful improvement in supply. Commodity strategists warned Monday that traders may be pricing in an overly optimistic outlook while underestimating the remaining supply risks.
During the conflict, the United States authorized the release of 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to help stabilize markets. Even after the ceasefire, the SPR remains at its lowest level since 1983, and combined U.S. strategic and commercial inventories have fallen substantially. In other words, the market has largely priced out the geopolitical risk, but much of the emergency oil that helped calm prices has already been consumed.
World leaders are not so sure the crisis is over. President Trump claims that Iran has requested a meeting on Tuesday but Iranian leaders say that they do not intend to meet with any U.S. officials.
“We will not have any negotiation meetings at any level with the American side in the coming days, and the fact that the U.S. representatives are traveling to Qatar has nothing to do with the visit of the Iranian delegation,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.
Okay then. Can U.S. negotiators just show up and hope to catch the Iranians for an elevator pitch? Can President Trump end this energy crisis because he’s bored of it and demand that it is over by Tweet?