President Trump said Wednesday he instructed the Department of Justice to open a price-gouging probe because gas prices are not dropping fast enough following his first-stage peace deal with Iran.
U.S. gas prices are slowly receding alongside falling oil prices. The average price per gallon stood at $3.92 on Wednesday, compared to $4.50 a month ago, according to the AAA motor club.
Mr. Trump is impatient with the pace of the decline.
“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged,’” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The U.S. and Israel launched a military operation against Iran on Feb. 28 to prevent it from getting a nuclear weapon, so Tehran closed the Strait of Hormuz — a critical choke point — in retaliation, causing oil prices to soar to more than $100 per barrel.
The price of Brent crude fell below $75 per barrel after the U.S. and Iran reached a memorandum of understanding to reopen the strait and enter 60 days of final-stage peace talks.
SEE ALSO: U.S., Iran offer different stories on nuclear inspections as negotiations continue
Crude oil is the primary ingredient in gasoline, so any increase or decrease in crude prices means ups and downs at the gas pump.
Analysts say gas prices tend to fall more slowly than they rise when supply shocks occur, as businesses across the supply chain protect against losses or factor in future costs from another disruption.
Further, gas prices tend to rise when demand increases around the spring and summer travel period, which could counteract decreases related to the ceasefire.
Mr. Trump wants big companies to hurry up.
“Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!” he wrote on social media.
Mr. Trump likes to boast about how gas prices fell during his second term from the sky-high levels they reached during the Biden administration, including an all-time high national average of $5.02 in June 2022.
SEE ALSO: U.N. nuclear chief says inspectors will visit Iran sites. Tehran says only after a final deal
The average gas price per gallon was $2.98 at the start of the Iran war.
Throughout the war, Mr. Trump said short-term pain from higher prices would be worth preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
U.S. and Iran negotiators are wrangling over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and other matters in final-stage peace talks in Switzerland.
Mr. Trump insisted that talks were progressing well despite naysayers in the media and elsewhere.
He said Iran is not charging tolls on ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz and has not received any financial benefits so far.
The president said the U.S., eventually, will unfreeze some Iranian assets to let the country buy American farm products.
“We will be releasing some of their money, that is totally controlled by us, to our Farmers and Ranchers, for the purchase of Corn, Wheat, Soybeans, and more. Food is desperately needed in Iran, and we will be purchasing it for them exclusively from the United States,” Mr. Trump said Wednesday on social media.
Iran offered conflicting accounts of the talks earlier this week, saying it had no interest in U.S. farm goods and that it had not agreed to let U.S. inspectors see its nuclear sites.
