What happens when a political populist confuses the minds of a "great advocate of free enterprise"?
US President Donald Trump's attack on oil companies ExxonMobil and Chevron, accusing them of profiting from his war with Iran, took place. With this statement, Trump showed that populism is politically colorless, as Joe Biden did in 2022, criticizing oil companies for "war profiteering" at the beginning of Russia's war against Ukraine.
Panic… is the common denominator in Biden and Trump’s attacks on powerful oil companies. Biden was in his mid-term, Trump was facing midterm elections for Congress. Biden was in a bad public image and was already facing defeat, Trump is now in an even worse situation: according to a recent CBS News poll, about half of Americans believe that high fuel prices (and inflation) are threatening their family budgets. This could mean that Democrats are right, and thanks to Trump, hoping for a majority in Congress.
That's why Trump decided on a populist move to cover his tracks, attacking oil companies: "They're making too much money. I don't like that," Trump said, and when he realized what he had said, he tried to "smear himself with ashes": "I should be the last one to say that because I'm a big advocate of free enterprise." Thus, the populist buried his alleged alter ego of a market liberal, all in the desire to protect consumers from his bad presidential policies.
The average American can put up with anything, but not an unpleasant surprise at the gas station. The current president of the country has given him just that shock. Trump's reckless and hasty war adventure in the Middle East has raised the average retail price of gasoline from $2,9 in February to $4,09 in early August (almost a dollar higher than it was at the same time last year). At the beginning of the war, the president predicted that gasoline prices would fall to their lowest level when the US "finished with Iran", but America did not "finish" the job, so in reality the average price of gasoline rose 37% in five months. And now, as the midterm elections for Congress approach, Trump has "thundered" (a favorite term of the domestic, drinkable and shallow media mind) at the scapegoat on duty - the oil industry for "making too much money".
The data confirms that Chevron had a record quarterly revenue of $12,1 billion, while ExxonMobil’s $14,5 billion was almost double the profit it made in the same quarter last year. Their profits have been the target of the president’s wrath. “I’ll say it loud and clear: I’m not happy. All oil companies must return some of that to the people and lower their consumer prices, now,” Trump ordered, sounding like an arsonist offering to put out a fire he started. Those named are, for now, silent.
Such high profits for oil companies, by the way, are part of a well-known economic model: when global supply is limited, fear and shortages lead to a sharp increase in fuel prices. Just two weeks after the start of the war in the Middle East, the US president's administration was warned about this fact by the directors of ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips. And indeed, Trump's war against Iran has raised global oil prices, which has resulted in higher costs for American consumers at the gas pumps. This market rule does not apply only to American oil companies. For example, the world's largest oil company Saudi Aramco reported a second-quarter profit of $33,4 billion (in the same period last year it was $25,2 billion), and the British Shell reported a profit of almost $10 billion, the second-highest quarterly profit in the company's history.
That the US president is not, in fact, a great advocate of free enterprise, as he falsely portrays himself to be, but rather a political populist, is also evidenced by his somewhat earlier (and now ongoing) attempt to "take on the teeth" of oil companies. Namely, at the end of June, Trump ordered the Department of Justice to investigate major oil companies for "not lowering gasoline prices fast enough" as crude oil prices fell.
The American Petroleum Institute also spoke out about Trump's latest attack. Its spokesperson Andrea Woods reminded the US president that higher prices were "driven by global supply and demand and the continued uncertainty surrounding the Strait of Hormuz and other critical shipping lanes, not by any company's decision."
As long as the war continues and the price of oil remains high, oil companies will earn huge profits. Not because they are greedy, but because the American president cannot get out of the war in which he has mired America and the market.
Any educated supporter of free enterprise knows that the current rise in the price of gasoline is the result of war decisions made in the White House, not business decisions made in the skyscrapers of Chevron and ExxonMobil. Prices are determined by supply and demand, that's a basic economic law. The problem for America is that President Donald Trump increasingly acts as if he is above the law.
That's why the US Supreme Court "slapped him on the finger" the other day, by repealing the tariffs he imposed for "Liberation Day". Trump is trying to hide this court decision from the citizens, shouting against the profits of oil companies. According to the Court's ruling, the US Customs Service had to return about 100 billion dollars to companies that paid import duties under Trump's law. Another 65 billion remain to be returned. However, the president does not care about the Supreme Court's decisions and continues to impose tariffs on countries that he does not like that morning almost every day.
After the publication (June 30) of the Office of Government Ethics' report on the president's income in 2025, Trump's concern for citizens, whom he supposedly defends from greedy oil companies, is also questionable. But not from his own greed. The report announced that in the first year of his presidency, Trump reported income of $1,4 billion from his own cryptocurrency transactions alone (he earned a total of $2,2 billion, abusing many unwritten rules and regulations). Citizens, buyers of his cryptocurrencies, did not fare as well as he did, suffering significant losses. For example, the value of the World Liberty token fell from 19 cents (October 2025) to six cents (July 2026). And the price of the $TRUMP memcoin fell from almost $75 to around $1,7.
In a nervous attempt to stop his declining approval ratings, Trump is making populist moves unworthy of a president that are only further undermining Republicans' chances of retaining their majority in Congress in November. Unfortunately, he is doing even greater damage to the market and free enterprise.
See more:
Download the app and follow the news
FOLLOW US ON
