President Donald Trump is reaching the limits of his influence as he seeks to reduce sky-high gas prices ahead of the midterm elections. In social media posts and speeches across the country, Trump has sought to assure voters that gas prices, a major sticking point for Americans struggling with an affordability crisis, will soon drop. At the White House, for example, on Friday, Trump recalled seeing gas prices below $2 a gallon in Iowa before the United States and Israel launched surprise attacks on Iran in February. “To those levels soon,” he said. The numbers and trajectory of conflicts around the world, however, portend a different story. As of Sunday, AAA reported the average price for regular gas in the U.S. was $4.36 per gallon. Last year at this time, that figure was $3.09. Diesel prices have also skyrocketed, reaching $6.28 per gallon earlier this month. Early on Monday, Brent crude, the international oil benchmark, was trading about 2% lower at around $103 per barrel. That’s more than 40% above its level at the start of the Iran war, but about 2% below where it was a month ago, after prices rose to more than $100 a barrel in early September. However, the biggest concern is diesel, whose prices have remained high despite the recent decline. Want more Business Insider in your news? Add BI on Google to make our reports easier to find when you’re looking for what matters. Refinery bottlenecks and attacks on energy infrastructure in the Middle East and Russia have reduced supplies of the fuel, which powers trucks, trains, ships and agricultural equipment. That raises transportation costs across the economy and can keep inflation under pressure even if crude oil prices stabilize. Persistently high diesel prices also pose a political challenge ahead of the midterm elections, as rising transportation costs threaten to add to the inflationary pressures already weighing on American households. Hours later, Ukraine attacked a Russian oil depot. On Sunday morning, Trump again attempted to calm oil markets, announcing an “ENERGY CEASE FIRE” between Russia and Ukraine on Truth Social. However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in X that, while he supports such a ceasefire, the agreement was news to him. He added that a Russian drone attacked a power plant in kyiv on Sunday. Meanwhile, on Saturday in the Strait of Hormuz, through which oil shipments have slowed to a trickle as Iran asserts its control over the key waterway (one of the main reasons oil prices have risen and gas prices have soared), an oil tanker hit a mine and caught fire. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have expanded their control of the coast bordering the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, a key sea route for Saudi oil exports. And last month, the group orchestrated an attack from southeastern Iraq against a major Saudi oil pipeline, forcing Saudi Arabia to temporarily shut it down. An attack on King Khalid International Airport by Houthi fighters on Saturday killed 12 people and wounded more than 300. One American was killed, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, and officials were forced to briefly close the airport. November.
