President Donald Trump blamed Democrats and Ukraine for rising US fuel prices on Monday. He said, “What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, but the word, ‘Refineries.’” Meanwhile, petrol costs reached $4.36 per gallon as global supplies fell and G7 nations started releasing their emergency oil stocks.

With the United States midterm elections approaching, President Donald Trump has attempted to shift blame for high fuel prices from the US-Israel war on Iran to Democrats and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian refineries.

“What’s driving up Gasoline is no longer the Strait of Hormuz, because Record Numbers of Barrels are coming out now on an almost daily basis, but the word, ‘Refineries,’ where Russia’s are being blown up by Ukraine, and where ours are being closed up, in Blue States, like California, by the Dumocrats,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Monday.

list of 4 items

list 1 of 4G7 nations to release oil and diesel stocks, will it bring down the prices?

list 2 of 4Iran says Hormuz to remain closed until US meets conditions

list 3 of 4Middle East oil exports surpass pre-war levels despite tensions, data shows

list 4 of 4Is Iran charging a toll to allow oil traffic through Hormuz?

end of list

While Trump claims domestic refinery closures are driving the spike, daily exports through the Strait of Hormuz have actually plunged 97 percent since the war began, choking global supplies.

Petrol prices are continuing to climb for consumers. The average price for a gallon (3.79 litres) is $4.36, up from $4.14 a month ago and up from $2.98 on February 28, when the US and Israel first struck Iran, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks daily petrol prices.

“The ongoing conflicts with Iran and Russia’s war with Ukraine are reinforcing each other, impairing oil product markets, but Middle Eastern flows are far from normal,” Rachel Ziemba, senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera.

On Friday, G7 countries agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from emergency reserves amid pressure from the White House. Meanwhile, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve hits its lowest level since 1982.

“US tells some [European Union] members to release ‘strategic reserves’ or face a potential US diesel export ban, pushing France and Germany to do so, oil prices, along with gasoline and diesel futures strongly lower as a result,” Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a post on X.

Global pressures

Ukraine’s attacks on Russia’s energy infrastructure have also driven up prices, particularly diesel fuel. On Sunday, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence claimed that it has disabled more than half of Russia’s oil refining capacity.

“The damage to Russia’s refineries – and risk of more US sanctions on those who process Russian oil – are exacerbating the situation, but the underlying issue is still the volatile flows from the Middle East, the greater difficulty getting oil products out and the lower buffers in place,” Ziemba added.

The latest strikes come amid ongoing attacks since the war between Russia and Ukraine began in 2022. In June, Russian refinery throughput hit its lowest level in two decades, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency (IEA). The analysis also found that diesel production has fallen 30 percent over the past 18 months.

Trump has also blamed price increases on refining cuts in Democratic-led states such as California, where two refineries have shut down over the past year. The closures reduced the state’s refining capacity by 17 percent, creating some supply gaps, according to an analysis by S&P Global.