Posted on 07/12/2026 6:30:23 AM PDT by thegagline
President Donald Trump is leaning hard on major U.S. companies to cut consumer prices, recently warning gasoline retailers of "big problems" if they didn’t reduce the price of gasoline commensurate with the price of crude, while crediting Walmart for its summer rollback of thousands of prices, as inflation sits at a three-year high and Republicans brace for a difficult midterm.
***annual inflation climbed to 4.2% in May, the sharpest 12-month reading since April 2023, driven mostly by an energy shock tied to the U.S. war against Iran.
Gasoline prices alone were up 40.5% year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In a June 30 Truth Social post, Trump ordered gasoline retailers to bring their prices down "IMMEDIATELY," told them to "start targeting around the $2.50 a Gallon number," and warned that "big problems lie ahead" if they didn’t reduce the price of gasoline commensurate with the price of crude oil. ***
Critics told the Financial Times the market interventions mark a sharp break for a Republican administration.
Paasha Mahdavi ***called it "a crazy turn for a conservative government," saying Trump was borrowing from a "socialist, hyper-populist playbook." Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute told the paper the moves had "a flailing-about quality" and reflected "how much trouble the president is in because everything is so expensive." *** A Financial Times/Focaldata poll of 1,795 registered voters, conducted online June 26-30 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, found 58% said the Iran war had not been worth the cost, and Trump's overall job approval sat at 36%, down two points from a month earlier. ***
Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates the conflict has added hundreds of dollars to the average household's fuel bill since fighting began Feb. 28.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsmax.com ...
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Channeling his inner Jimmy Carter.
How about not inflating the currency?
President Joe Biden on Monday accused oil companies of "war profiteering" as he raised the possibility of imposing a windfall tax on energy companies if they don't boost domestic production.
Biden in brief remarks criticized major oil companies for making record-setting profits while refusing to help lower prices at the pump for the American people.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-biden-makes-statement-on-oil-company-profits-in-the-face-of-high-gas-prices-at-the-pump
Paasha Mahdavi was born in Teheran to an Iranian father and an Egyptian-English mother.
She and her family moved to America when she was two. Four years later,
the family relocated to Germany before finally settling in Southern France.
Mahdavi carries a very strong “Middle Eastern” identity.
This is pathetically rookie Dem move by DJT. I can’t believe he’s even gone there.
I love President Trump but I really don’t like any president trying to directly control prices. It seems so, so, you know, left-wing.
Trump is apoplectic-—— warning US companies of “big problems” if
they didn’t reduce the price of gas commensurate with the price of crude......
Maybe Trump should bomb Iran another 10,000 times.....
seeing that the initial 10,000 didnt do the job........./s.
Only problem is.....where’s he gonna get the bombs?
Break out the W.I.N. buttons.
He’s right. This is outright thievery now by the Patel Cartel. Get the DOE involved. Make an example or two by yanking licenses from a few Kumars and Parags.
As usual, the problem is Wall Street. The buyers are afraid of a shortage so they outbid each other driving the prices higher and higher.
Everything has more than doubled in price the past ten years (actually, the past six or seven). I don’t understand why gasoline should not have the same general inflation rate. Why do people expect it to be immune to general price increases? Why should it stay at $3.00/gallon forever? That just isn’t realistic.
I don’t care who the politician is.
There is no problem the government cannot make worse.
The producers and retailers slash the sizes and contents of things at the same time they keep raising prices.
People are being put on the streets with super high rents, property taxes, skyrocketing mandatory car insurance, vehicle prices, energy bills etc.
Trump knows this or he would not make a request like this.
Not everyone is wealthy and can take all the financial hits.
why, Why, WHY didn’t I vote for Kamala Harris??? 😭😭😭
She would have been so much better!!!
😆😆😆😜😜😜😉😉😉
I looked it up:
“The net profit on gasoline sales is extremely thin, averaging between $0.03 and $0.10 per gallon after expenses like labor, utilities, and credit card fees. This results in a net profit margin of approximately 1% to 2% on fuel sales.”
How about demanding the gas tax - fed and state - be slashed instead? - especially in California, which pays the highest gas taxes in the nation.
Agree. The Great Reset…
It’s the government (Fed and state) taxes that are gouging us on gas.
To over simplify, if I, as a retailer, buy something from a wholesaler at $1.00 and sell it at $1.25 to cover the cost of the “something”, $.20 in operating costs and $.05 in profit, and the wholesale cost goes down to $.80 so I could sell a newly purchased “something” at $1.05, and I reduce the price of the first something to $1.05 to reflect the new wholesale price, seems to me I lose funding somewhere: profit, operating costs, or capital needed to buy more “somethings” at the new wholesale cost.
As a retailer, I can’t keep that up.
Also, seems to me that if the wholesale price goes from $.80 to $1.00, I may have to raise the price of what I bought at $.80 enough to pay for restocking myself at the $1.00 cost unless I borrow to do so which raises my operating cost.
But then I am neither in retail or finance. I just know that I have to get rid of the gasoline I bought at $3.80 a gallon before I can buy more at $3.50 a gallon and I’m not throwing it away.
There is much to what you said. For the past 40 years or so, the middle class has been put in a squeeze.
But Trump warned the gasoline retailers of “big problems”. That’s not a request.
It’s a threat. And not something I’d expect to hear from a Republican president.
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