Trump Brags About Oil Profits While Gas Costs $4.26 a Gallon

A fill-up costs $4.26 a gallon for regular gasoline today, according to AAA. That is the national average, not a worst-case number from a coastal city or a remote highway town. Diesel is $6.35.

President Donald Trump looked at that reality and said the country is winning. “We’re making a freaking fortune,” he told supporters at a Georgia rally over the weekend.

My first reaction was simple: who is “we”? Not the person deciding whether to drive to work, take the kids to practice, or postpone a trip because the tank costs too much. Not the small contractor whose truck burns diesel all day. Not the family that has learned to treat every errand as a route-planning problem.

Trump was speaking about the oil and gas business, and he said it is making “hundreds of billions of dollars.” That may be true for parts of the industry. It is not the same as saying ordinary Americans are better off.

What drivers are paying

AAA reports that the national average for regular unleaded was $4.2661 per gallon on October 28. A week earlier, it was $4.2786. A month earlier, it was $4.4798.

So prices have eased slightly in recent weeks. That is worth saying. Relief at the pump does not have to be dramatic to matter when a household budget has already absorbed months of higher costs.

But the larger picture is hard to miss. AAA reported that October was likely to become the first October on record with an average price above $4 per gallon. The Associated Press reported that the national average was $4.29 on Monday, up from $2.98 before the war with Iran began.

For a driver who buys 15 gallons, the difference between $3.07 a year ago and roughly $4.29 now is about $18.30 per fill-up. Do that every week and the extra cost becomes a car payment’s worth of money over a month. It does not disappear because the price happens to be a few cents lower than last week.

The words matter

Trump acknowledged the burden. He said advisers warned him not to mention the profits because people are paying more at the pump. Then he said he would say it anyway.

He also predicted that pump prices will come down. That is a promise, not a fact I can verify today. Oil markets do not move on a political schedule, and drivers have heard predictions of relief before.

What is documented is the gap between the language and the ledger. Americans are paying record-high prices for this time of year. The president is celebrating money being made from high oil prices. Those two facts can both be true. They do not sit comfortably together.

I keep thinking about the word “fortune.” A fortune is what you have after the bills are paid. For many households, higher fuel costs are the bills. They arrive before groceries, rent, child care, medical costs, and everything else that already feels tight.

Who benefits, who pays

High oil prices can lift producers, exporters, and some energy-sector investors. They can also raise costs for people whose work depends on driving: delivery drivers, nurses making home visits, farmers, tradespeople, parents shuttling between jobs and school.

The benefits and the burdens do not land on the same people. That is the part that should concern anyone in public life.

A White House official told Hearst Television that American oil production and exports make the country wealthier and strengthen national security. That is a policy argument, and it deserves a serious answer. But wealth at the national level is not the same as relief in a household budget. A country can post gains while a worker’s commute becomes more expensive every month.

There is also a question of timing. Trump made the remarks at a campaign rally, with elections close at hand. Politicians often frame economic pain as temporary and economic gains as permanent. Drivers do not get to make that choice. They pay what the sign says.

What would help

The useful question is not whether Trump should have used a rough phrase. It is whether the people bearing the cost are being treated as an afterthought.

Relief would mean more than a promise that prices will fall. It would mean clear information about why prices are high, what policies can actually lower them, and how quickly. It would mean attention to the people for whom fuel is not an abstraction but a weekly expense.

Gas prices have slipped from their recent highs. AAA’s numbers show that. But $4.26 a gallon is still a hard number for a lot of Americans. When the people setting national policy talk about a “fortune,” they should be able to explain whose fortune it is, and who is still paying for it.

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