Gas under Trump 2.0 is now more expensive than it was under Biden

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On the campaign trail in 2024, President Donald Trump promised to make gas dirt-cheap again and blamed record-high gas prices on the Biden-Harris “war on energy.”

But then an actual war got in the way: Trump’s deeply unpopular conflict with Iran.

Nearly eight months into a war that has destabilized the global energy system, the average price of gas during Trump’s second term is now more expensive than it was during the Biden era, according to a CNN analysis of AAA data.

That milestone — a nearly unthinkable outcome as recently as January — underscores the frustration over high prices that has engulfed Trump and the Republican party leading up to the midterm elections.

“It’s pretty astonishing,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said of the fact that gas is now more expensive under Trump than former President Joe Biden. “I don’t think anyone would have predicted this 10 months ago.”

It’s a major reversal of the return to sub-$2 gas that Trump promised in the summer of 2024 as he successfully convinced voters to return him to the White House.

During his first term, the national average for regular gas was just $2.47 a gallon. During the depths of the Covid-19 pandemic, gas prices plunged to as low as $1.77 nationally in April 2020.

The health emergency caused demand for fuel to crash to the point that the world ran out of room to store oil, a phenomenon that briefly drove crude oil futures below zero for the first time ever.

At one point in April 2020, Trump even pleaded with Saudi Arabia and Russia to stop pumping so much oil to halt a crash that threatened to bankrupt US oil companies and kill countless jobs.

The situation couldn’t be more different today.

The White House has waged a last-minute scramble to contain the damage from high fuel prices by taking a wide range of steps, including throwing farmers an $8 billion financial lifeline , buying millions of barrels of Russian diesel and examining steps to drive down extremely high shipping costs.

“President Trump is fixing these long-term problems by taking tangible steps to increase our refining capacity here in the United States, while also taking immediate actions, such as releasing oil from our (Strategic Petroleum Reserve) to add supply to the market, temporarily waiving the Jones Act, and allowing red-dyed diesel for highway use, to lower prices at the pump,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told CNN.

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The outlook for gasoline and diesel prices was very favorable for Americans when the year started.

Gas prices were safely below $3 a gallon, and, if anything, the energy market was worried about a supply glut that could keep fuel prices low.

“If Trump really wanted to keep his promise to keep gas prices low, what he should have done was nothing,” said Gregory Brew, senior analyst at consulting firm Eurasia Group. “The market was oversupplied. There was a lot of crude sloshing around. Inventories were quite large. But Trump reversed that with the war.”

Trump has argued that elevated gas prices are a small price to pay for keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.

But the spike in gas prices has angered voters who were hoping for the opposite under Trump.

“High gas prices do not bode well for incumbents. They didn’t bode well for Biden either,” GasBuddy’s De Haan said.

Gas prices spiked even higher under Biden, zooming to an all-time high of $5.02 a gallon in June 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine.

However, gas prices came down faster under Biden.

In fact, 2026 has already shattered the Biden-era record for the most number of days with $4 gas or higher.

The war with Iran led to the unthinkable: The unprecedented closure of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway the world relied on to get oil out of the Middle East.

While oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz have largely recovered, the cost to get that crude out has skyrocketed because of expensive and inefficient workarounds being used. The cost of hiring an oil tanker has skyrocketed from $65,000 a day last year to $1.6 million earlier this month.

Not only that, but the world is now grappling with a global refining shortage. Refineries that would normally churn out diesel, jet fuel and gasoline have been damaged in the Middle East and Russia. China has held back its own fuel exports.

To make up for lost refinery output, the world has drawn fuel from commercial and emergency stockpiles.

But that leaves the intricate energy system vulnerable to shocks.

Case in point: A recent, unexpected outage at ExxonMobil’s Joliet, Illinois, refinery caused gasoline prices to go through the roof in Michigan, Ohio and other Great Lakes states in recent days.

“Right now, there is no cushion. Commercial inventories are very low,” said Brew. “When there is any kind of outage, everyone starts to scramble.”

Refiners, incentivized by the ability to make incredible profits due to the shortage, are producing as much fuel as possible even though normally this is the time of year operations slow for routine repairs.

“Refiners have been running flat-out for months. If you own a refinery, you are printing money. Some are skipping maintenance because there is money to be made right now,” said Brew. “But if you run refiners for months on end, they will break down.”

Once the Exxon refinery returns to normal, gas prices should come back down. However, that relief will likely be offset by the fact that oil prices have surged to seven-month highs as traders brace for the risk of a return to all-out war in the Middle East after the election.

De Haan said Trump is “pulling every small lever he can” to cushion the blow from high prices.

“Unfortunately, they’re not adding up to much,” he said. “Until the biggest lever — diplomacy — is pulled, he’s going to continue to fight against very elevated gas and record diesel. It’s fairly ominous.”

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在 2024 年的竞选活动中，唐纳德·特朗普总统承诺让汽油再次变得非常便宜，并将创纪录的高汽油价格归咎于拜登-哈里斯的“能源战争”。

但随后一场真正的战争横亘在了眼前：特朗普与伊朗之间极不受欢迎的冲突。

据 CNN 对 AAA 数据的分析显示，这场破坏全球能源体系的战争已经持续了近八个月，特朗普第二个任期内的汽油平均价格现在比拜登执政时期还要贵。

这一里程碑——就在今年1月，这几乎是不可想象的结果——凸显了高物价带来的沮丧情绪，这种情绪在中期选举前一直困扰着特朗普和共和党。

GasBuddy石油分析主管帕特里克·德哈恩表示：“这真是令人震惊，因为在特朗普执政期间，汽油价格比前总统乔·拜登执政期间更高。我想10个月前没人能预料到这种情况。”

这与特朗普在2024年夏天成功说服选民让他重返白宫时承诺的油价回落到每加仑2美元以下的目标截然相反。

在他第一个任期内，全国普通汽油的平均价格仅为每加仑2.47美元。在新冠疫情最严重的时候，2020年4月全国汽油价格暴跌至每加仑1.77美元的低点。

这场公共卫生危机导致燃料需求暴跌，以至于世界石油储存空间告罄，这一现象一度使原油期货价格有史以来首次跌至零以下。

2020 年 4 月，特朗普甚至一度恳求沙特阿拉伯和俄罗斯停止大量开采石油，以阻止可能导致美国石油公司破产和无数人失业的油价暴跌。

如今的情况截然不同。

白宫已展开最后一刻的紧急行动，以遏制高油价带来的损害，采取了一系列措施，包括向农民提供 80 亿美元的财政援助、购买数百万桶俄罗斯柴油以及研究降低极高运输成本的措施。

白宫发言人泰勒·罗杰斯告诉美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）：“特朗普总统正在通过采取切实措施来解决这些长期问题，例如提高美国本土的炼油能力，同时采取立即行动，例如从我们的战略石油储备中释放石油以增加市场供应，暂时豁免《琼斯法案》，以及允许使用红色柴油用于高速公路，以降低加油站的油价。”

Patrick T. Fallon/法新社/盖蒂图片社

年初时，美国民众对汽油和柴油价格的前景非常乐观。

汽油价格远低于每加仑 3 美元，而且，能源市场反而担心供应过剩，这可能会使燃料价格保持低位。

“如果特朗普真的想兑现他保持低油价的承诺，他应该什么都不做，”欧亚集团高级分析师格雷戈里·布鲁表示。“当时市场供应过剩，原油库存充足，但特朗普发动战争扭转了局面。”

特朗普认为，为了阻止伊朗获得核武器，付出高油价的代价是很小的。

但汽油价格飙升激怒了那些希望在特朗普领导下汽油价格下降的选民。

GasBuddy公司的德哈恩表示：“高油价对现任官员来说不是好兆头，对拜登来说也不是好兆头。”

在拜登执政期间，汽油价格飙升，在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰后，2022 年 6 月更是达到了每加仑 5.02 美元的历史最高点。

然而，拜登执政期间汽油价格下降得更快。

事实上，2026 年汽油价格达到或超过 4 美元的天数已经打破了拜登时代的纪录。

与伊朗的战争导致了难以想象的后果：霍尔木兹海峡史无前例地关闭，这条狭窄的水道是世界各国从中东运出石油的通道。

虽然霍尔木兹海峡的石油流量已基本恢复，但由于采用了成本高昂且效率低下的替代方法，原油运输成本却飙升。租用油轮的费用已从去年的每天6.5万美元飙升至本月初的160万美元。

不仅如此，世界目前还面临着全球炼油短缺的困境。中东和俄罗斯的炼油厂原本应该生产柴油、航空煤油和汽油，但这些炼油厂都遭到了破坏。中国也已经减少了自身的燃料出口。

为了弥补炼油厂产量的损失，世界各国动用了商业储备和应急储备来生产燃料。

但这使得复杂的能源系统容易受到冲击。

举例来说：埃克森美孚位于伊利诺伊州乔利埃特的炼油厂最近发生意外停产，导致密歇根州、俄亥俄州和其他五大湖州的汽油价格在最近几天飙升。

“目前没有任何缓冲余地。商业库存非常低，”布鲁说。“一旦出现任何形式的停电，所有人都会开始争相抢购。”

由于燃料短缺，炼油商有机会获得巨额利润，因此他们正尽可能多地生产燃料，尽管通常这个时候炼油厂会放慢生产速度进行例行维修。

“炼油厂已经连续几个月满负荷运转了。如果你拥有一家炼油厂，那简直就是在印钞票。有些人甚至因为现在有利可图而忽略了维护保养，”布鲁说道。“但如果炼油厂连续几个月都这样运转，它们迟早会出故障。”

一旦埃克森美孚炼油厂恢复正常运转，汽油价格应该会回落。然而，由于交易员们担心美国大选后中东地区可能再次爆发全面战争，油价已飙升至七个月来的最高点，因此汽油价格的回落很可能被抵消。

德哈恩表示，特朗普正在“竭尽所能”来缓解高物价带来的冲击。

“可惜的是，这些措施收效甚微，”​​他说。“除非动用最重要的手段——外交手段——否则他将继续与高企的汽油价格和创纪录的柴油价格作斗争。这相当不祥。”