Former President Donald Trump made misleading headlines recently when he announced that gasoline prices were under $2 per gallon. This claim cutely ignores the reality of the current market. The typical price of gas in America now hovers around $3.165 per gallon. Photo by American Automobile Association (AAA) That’s an increase of almost two cents from just last week and $1.18 more than what Trump is touting.
Over the last month, gas prices have almost consistently gone down. This decrease is largely attributed to increasing recession concerns, which have led to substantial drops in crude oil prices. As a result, fears of a recession are growing in part from the economic stress of Trump’s tariffs. Moreover, OPEC+ producers have been able to respond rapidly with increased production to market developments.
Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy provided this key insight on the trend. He noted that recent pump prices are the lowest we’ve experienced since 2021. In his last monthly report, he announced a 12-cent decrease in the national average of gas prices since last month. This drop represents a 49.6-cent drop from this time last year.
National average gas prices have increased 2.0 cents per gallon in the last week, averaging $3.61/g today. As of this writing, the national average is $3.12 per gallon. This information is aggregated from more than 12 million price reports from over 150,000 gas stations nationwide.
De Haan further elaborated that although some consumers may find individual prices below $2.20 per gallon at certain stations, particularly in states like Texas and Tennessee, these instances are not representative of the broader market.
“In an apples to apples comparison, we have not seen a retail price available to everyone below about $2.20 a gallon, but what we have seen is consumers can lower their prices through the use of points and other promotions.” – Patrick De Haan
Specific transactions that reflect $1.99/gallon payments typically result from loyalty point redemptions. That’s because these are not the MSRP, the sticker price all consumers can find on-demand. De Haan further noted that Trump’s declared price misses the mark for a number of key reasons. These are taxes, tariffs, transportation payments and credit card fees.
“That price is not inclusive of anything. It excludes taxes, it excludes tariffs, transportation, the cost of doing business, credit card fees — I mean all of it.” – Patrick De Haan
Though Trump has touted his administration’s success in lowering gas prices, the economic reality guides us toward another storyline. That’s in addition to analysts predicting the opportunity for gas prices to dip well below $3 per gallon. That’s certainly possible as refinery maintenance concludes and total supplies in the U.S. market increase.
Taylor Rogers, a spokesperson for Trump, went on the offensive to defend the former president’s remarks. She claimed that his economic policies are more than just pushing down prices for American families, a record never seen before.
“While some of the damage done by Bidenomics is still lingering, President Trump’s economic agenda is lowering prices for American families at lightning speed.” – Taylor Rogers