Ooops! What we predicted about higher gas prices a couple of months ago… Never mind!
On April 28, Politico White House reporter Scott Waldman along with his sidekick, Eli Stokols, were confidently citing experts who predicted a big surge in gasoline prices due to the Iran war as you can see in “‘There’s a day of reckoning coming’: Energy experts expect another spike at the pump.”
Energy experts say another oil price spike is coming — and it may be made worse by the president’s social media posts.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly spurred temporary dips in oil prices by claiming on Truth Social that the Iran war is near an end and that U.S. oil production would ensure sky high gas prices would soon retreat.
The jawboning has mostly worked. Even as the global price of oil has crept up over $100 per barrel on the futures market, it is significantly less than the $140 per barrel spot price, or what it would take to buy a barrel today.
But the president’s promises can only work for so long. Supply of oil — especially in Europe and Asia — is dwindling and a price shock is coming, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners.
He said that when the summer driving season begins there will be another gas price shock that “hits people in the face.”
“There’s a day of reckoning coming,” he said. “It will be painful because I can tell you that the stock market’s ignoring this.”
Well, two months later and it appears that the “day of reckoning” is fading away as petroleum and gasoline prices continue declining.. From a high in April of $112 per barrel of crude oil that price has plunged over $40 to the current price of just over $70 per barrel with the price of gasoline also declining and expected to lower even more. To Waldman’s credit, he acknowledged the erroneous predictions of April on Tuesday in “Energy experts said gas prices would stay high. Why were they wrong?”
Gasoline prices have fallen precipitously since the U.S. and Iran began their fragile truce, defying expert predictions of a long summer slog with sky-high prices.
Instead of spiraling upward, the average price at the pump has plummeted 70 cents per gallon in a month from a peak of $4.56. A little over a week since the memorandum of understanding was signed between the countries, a barrel of oil costs just a little more than it did before the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran in late February.
It wasn’t supposed to work this way, according to energy experts whose predictions of $150 barrel of oil, $5 gasoline and summer recessions were widely quoted in the media, including POLITICO.
Unsurprisingly, since this is Politico after all, Waldman seemed a bit bummed out that the lower than expected gas prices at the pump could improve the GOP election prospects in the midterm elections.
The falling prices are a huge win for the president and his party, helping to blunt an easy Democratic attack line ahead of the upcoming midterms in which voters say they are hyperfocused on the cost-of-living. While voters may never forgive the spike, many political prognosticators thought it was going to be much worse.
If the current prices hold, the midterms may not be quite as catastrophic for Trump and Republicans in November, said Frank Luntz, the veteran Republican pollster. But he said the deadline for easing voter anxiety over affordability is essentially now. That’s because voter attitudes are locked in by August, which means that further price drops in September and October are likely less meaningful.
Hmmm… So does that mean Scott Waldman and much of the rest of the Politico staff will be furiously rubbing their worry beads in August while gazing fixatedly at the prices on the gas pumps?