Report: Gas Prices Politically Trap Joe Biden After Surging 18% in 4 Months

A sticker insinuates that President Joe Biden is responsible for high gas prices on a gas
Nick Oxford for The Washington Post via Getty Images
Wendell Husebo

President Joe Biden appears politically unable to prevent gas prices from increasing, a sour economic reality for voters with the presidential election just months away.

Drivers are reportedly paying 18 percent more to fill up their tanks than they were in 2023 — and the driving summer season is still to come.

Gas prices have not been below $3/gallon for 1,084 straight days, according to the Republican National Committee’s Research Team. Prices under Trump never reached $3/gallon. 

When former President Donald Trump left office, the national average for regular gas was $2.39/gallon. Monday’s price was $3.65/gallon, 52 percent higher under Biden.

Biden appears politically boxed into lower gas prices because he has no good political to reduce them, energy experts say. In turn, higher prices might remain a reality while Biden is president, Jim Lucier, managing director at Capital Alpha Partners, suggested to Bloomberg.

“The Biden administration is just pathologically allergic to anything that would increase oil prices, and they have telegraphed that over and over again,” he said. “Biden is in a box on this question.”
Biden’s decision to placate Iran is one major way Biden is trying to keep gas prices low before November’s election, Bloomberg reported:

Take, for instance, the president’s approach to crude from Iran, Russia and Venezuela. Despite more than a decade of US sanctions, Iran’s oil production last month surged to a six-year high of 3.3 million barrels a day. That’s up 75% from the low point in late 2020 under President Donald Trump, who stiffened penalties for those that violated existing prohibitions. Currently, about 80% of Iran’s exports of about 1.5 million barrels a day go to China, where they are refined by small independent refineries, according to a congressional report.

…

The administration’s soft approach to sanctions on oil from Iran, Russia and Venezuela has been key to its efforts to tame fuel costs. But that leniency is becoming politically riskier: Iran’s attack on Israel has intensified pressure on Biden to crack down on crude exports from the Islamic Republic. The OPEC member produces approximately 3 million barrels a day, equivalent to about 3% of global supply. And though Iranian crude might not find its way into US gasoline tanks, its presence generally helps to limit price gains.

Biden, who still has plenty of enforcement discretion, is unlikely to curtail Iranian oil exports significantly. Still, Republicans designed sanction waivers under the Ukraine aid measure to be public—potentially to embarrass him into action or, otherwise, help them make the case that he’s been too soft on Iran.

Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former GOP War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.

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