President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate major oil companies in a midnight tirade, accusing them of failing to pass along falling crude oil costs to consumers at the pump.
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In a Truth Social post published shortly after midnight, Trump wrote that oil companies were not dropping pump prices in line with the sharply lower prices they are paying for oil, describing those wholesale prices as “dropping like a rock.”
“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil,” Trump posted. “Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”
Trump did not name any specific companies in the post, and the accusation comes despite gasoline prices having fallen for six consecutive weeks, although the 80-year-old president arguing the decline hasn’t kept pace with crude’s drop.
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Pump prices remain well above the roughly $2.76 a gallon recorded in January, before the Iran conflict began. Easing tensions following a U.S.-Iran agreement have brought some relief to consumers ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Economists say gasoline pricing is more complex than Trump suggested, citing state and local taxes and the lag between crude price changes and pump prices. Neither the White House nor the DOJ had confirmed details of a formal probe as of Wednesday morning.
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