President Trump signaled on Wednesday that he plans to tap into the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down rising gas prices.
“I filled it up once, and I’ll fill it up again, but right now, we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down,” Trump said during an interview with Local 12 in Kentucky.
The president shrugged off rising gas prices as a “matter of war” earlier in the day and expressed confidence the market would settle soon.
“I figured we’d be hit a little bit. We were hit less than I thought and we’ll be back on track in a pretty short while,” he told reporters traveling with him to Ohio.
He also argued that gas “prices are coming down very substantially,” noting the increase is “just a matter or war. That happens. You can almost predict it.”
Oil prices spiked this week over worries about the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway off Iran’s coast where a fifth of the world’s oil passes through on a typical day.
Operation Epic Fury and Iranian counterattacks have halted most shipping traffic in the strait, leading oil producers to slash output.
The Iranian regime has vowed to prevent oil tankers from passing through the strait and more than a dozen minelaying Iranian ships were taken out by the US military on Tuesday.
The Paris-based International Energy Agency announced Wednesday that its 31 member nations plan to release a record 400 million barrels from stockpiles in response to supply disruptions.
This is a developing story. Check back for information.
