The Trump administration is leaning hard on a blame-corporate-greed explanation for rising prices even as the president’s war with Iran has disrupted global supply chains and pushed costs higher across the economy. U.S. gasoline prices have risen at their highest monthly pace on record, fertilizer prices have spiked and food costs are expected to follow.
Scott Bessent said on Wednesday the administration would keep retail gas stations honest and warned, “You did this on the way up, you better be doing this on the way down.” He added, “And I’m sure the president will call out anybody who’s a bad actor.”
The pressure is arriving at a moment when the supply shock is still working through markets. Oil, natural gas, fertilizer, aluminum, helium, plastics and other commodities that usually move through the Strait of Hormuz were blockaded first by the Iranian navy and then by the U.S. navy too, while infrastructure around the Persian Gulf was destroyed. Those disruptions are feeding a broad inflation news cycle that is hitting households long before any political explanation settles the argument.
The administration is also widening its focus beyond gas stations. U.S. Department of Agriculture officials have begun working with antitrust officials at the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to examine whether anticompetitive behavior is driving high costs for fertilizer, machinery and other inputs farmers buy. Over the weekend, Trump preemptively criticized fertilizer manufacturers for price gouging.
That scrutiny lands unevenly. The U.S. fertilizer industry is relatively concentrated, which can make price spikes easier to sustain, while the retail gas business is not. Most of the more than 100,000 gas stations around the country are owned by independent operators, meaning the federal push to “keep the retail gas stations honest” is aimed at a fragmented part of the market that is already absorbing the shock from far above.
There is also a political contradiction at the center of the effort. The White House is blaming companies for prices that are rising during an acute supply disruption caused by war-related damage, even as the administration’s own actions helped create the conditions now driving the cost surge. Trump’s EPA recently revoked the 2009 endangerment finding, the foundation for clean air protections, while the inflation fight is now shifting toward the same federal agencies that are supposed to police competition and prices.
The next test is whether the government’s investigation turns up evidence of collusion or whether the price surge proves to be the product of scarcity, not greed. For families paying more at the pump and farmers staring at higher input costs, that distinction will matter long after the talking points fade.