Trump Points Finger at Democrats and Ukraine as US Fuel Prices Surge Ahead of Midterms

With gasoline costs climbing steadily and midterm elections drawing near, President Donald Trump is working to redirect public frustration away from the US-Israel war on Iran and toward two other targets: Democratic-led states and Ukraine. In a Truth Social post on Monday, Trump argued that the real forces behind rising pump prices are refinery closures at home and Ukrainian strikes on Russian energy infrastructure abroad, rather than the conflict with Tehran that Washington helped ignite earlier this year.

"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," the president wrote, misspelling "Democrats" in his characteristic style.

The messaging push comes as the average price for a gallon of petrol in the United States sits at $4.36, according to the American Automobile Association, which tracks daily fuel costs. That figure represents a notable jump from $4.14 just a month ago and a dramatic increase from $2.98 on February 28, the date when US and Israeli forces first launched strikes against Iran. For American drivers, the trajectory has been relentlessly upward throughout the year.

Trump's claim that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer a factor stands in sharp contrast to shipping data. Daily exports through the critical waterway have collapsed by 97 percent since the war began, according to tracking figures, throttling global oil supplies at a moment when demand has shown little sign of easing. The near-total disruption of a chokepoint that normally carries a substantial share of the world's crude has rippled through energy markets worldwide.

The White House has not been idle in responding to the crisis. On Friday, Group of Seven nations agreed to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from emergency reserves after sustained pressure from Washington. The coordinated drawdown marks one of the largest such releases in recent memory, yet it has done little to reverse the price trend. Meanwhile, the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to its lowest level since 1982, leaving the country with a diminished buffer should conditions worsen.

Washington has also leaned on its allies. According to Patrick DeHaan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, the United States told some European Union members to release their own strategic reserves or face a potential ban on US diesel exports -- a move that pushed France and Germany to act. DeHaan noted in a post on X that oil prices, along with gasoline and diesel futures, dropped sharply following the announcements.

Ukraine's campaign against Russian energy infrastructure has compounded the pressure, particularly in diesel markets. On Sunday, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence claimed its forces have disabled more than half of Russia's oil refining capacity. The strikes are part of a broader effort that began after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 and has intensified over the past year, targeting refineries, depots and export terminals deep inside Russian territory.

The consequences for global fuel supplies have been measurable. In June, Russian refinery throughput fell to its lowest level in two decades, according to an analysis by the International Energy Agency. The same analysis found that diesel production has dropped 30 percent over the past 18 months, tightening a market that was already strained by the Middle East conflict.

Rachel Ziemba, a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera that the two conflicts are compounding one another. "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," she said. Ziemba added that damage to Russian refineries and the risk of further US sanctions on buyers of Russian oil are making a difficult situation worse, though she emphasized that the fundamental problem remains the volatile flow of oil from the Middle East and the reduced buffers available to absorb shocks.

Trump has also pointed to refinery closures in Democratic-led states, singling out California, where two refineries have shut down over the past year. According to an analysis by S&P Global, those closures cut the state's refining capacity by 17 percent, creating localized supply gaps and contributing to price volatility on the West Coast. The president has seized on those figures as evidence that Democratic policies, not his own administration's foreign policy, are to blame.

But the political context complicates that narrative. The midterm elections could reshape the balance of power in Washington, and voters appear unconvinced by the president's attempts to deflect responsibility. A recent AP-NORC poll found that 65 percent of Americans blame Trump's policies for higher prices, while 61 percent say the US economy is worse off than when he returned to office. Those numbers suggest that the White House's messaging campaign faces an uphill battle with an electorate feeling the squeeze at the pump.

For now, the underlying pressures show few signs of easing. Middle Eastern oil flows remain far below normal, Russian refining capacity is degraded, and emergency reserves on both sides of the Atlantic are being drawn down. Each factor reinforces the others, creating a supply crunch that no single policy lever can quickly resolve. As election day approaches, the question for the White House is whether voters will accept Trump's explanation -- or hold him accountable for the costs they see every time they fill their tanks.