Heading into the home stretch of what looks like a challenging midterm election, President Trump is pressuring U.S. oil companies to rush into Venezuela and ratchet up the pumping in an effort to lower the price of oil — and therefore the price of gasoline. But reports indicate that oil-company CEOs aren’t that interested. That’s because their top priority is their companies’ economic survival, not Trump’s political survival.
Consumers have seen the price of a gallon of gasoline drop significantly since last summer. In June, the average retail price of gasoline nationwide was $3.15 a gallon. Today, it’s about $2.77, and in some states even lower than that. Trump knows voters are very price-sensitive to gasoline and can take out their anger at the polls when gas prices are high, though it isn’t clear they reward political candidates when prices are low.
But Trump doesn’t want to take any chances. It increasingly appears that his “law-enforcement operation” in Venezuela was as much, and maybe more, about oil than it was about illegal drug running. He wants Venezuela cranking up oil production quickly to increase the global supply in the hope of lowering the price, which might also help lower the inflation rate.
Read the full article at TheHill.com