US President Donald Trump said Thursday he was not worried about rising gasoline prices linked to the widening conflict with Iran, adding that the military campaign was a bigger priority.
“I don’t have any concern about it,” Trump told Reuters in an interview when asked about higher prices at the pump. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”
Oil markets have reacted sharply to the conflict. Global crude prices have climbed 16% since the war began on Saturday as fighting disrupted supplies from the Middle East.
In the US, the national average price of gasoline has increased by 27 cents over the past week to $3.25 per gallon, according to AAA, a US travel organisation that tracks fuel prices.
The current average is also 15 cents higher than a year ago.
Trump, however, said the increase was limited and that prices “haven’t risen very much.”
The remarks represent a shift from the president’s recent messaging on energy prices. Last month, Trump highlighted falling gasoline prices during his State of the Union address and again at an energy-focused rally in Texas held hours before the US launched air strikes on Saturday.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles and Energy Secretary Chris Wright have both held discussions with oil company executives to explore possible steps to counter rising prices, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday.
Another White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity to Reuters, said teams working on energy and national security policy were scrambling to identify measures that could help bring prices down.
The official said Wiles had warned during internal meetings that failure to address higher fuel prices could be “catastrophic” for Republicans in the upcoming elections.
Trump has said the military campaign against Iran could last four to five weeks, though political and military experts have questioned that timeline, noting that the US government has not clearly defined its ultimate objective as the conflict spreads across the region.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the administration was preparing a package of measures to tackle rising energy costs. So far, however, the only step announced is US-backed risk insurance for oil tankers and the possibility of naval escorts through the Strait of Hormuz.
Officials are also considering other options, including a federal gasoline tax holiday and easing environmental regulations around summer gasoline to allow higher ethanol blends, according to the two sources familiar with the discussions.
They said a potential release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve had also been examined. Trump, however, ruled out that option for now during the interview.
He said he was not planning to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, the world’s largest emergency crude stockpile, and added that he expected the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for global oil shipments near Iran, to remain open because Iran’s navy is at the “bottom of the sea.”
Despite the recent price rise, the White House believes the impact on fuel markets will be temporary and expects the pressure on gasoline prices to ease once the conflict stabilises.
