Just six months into his second presidency, President Donald Trump and his team have kept so many of the promises made by candidate Trump during the 2024 campaign that it is hard to catalog them all. Where energy and American consumers are concerned, one of the most important among those campaign pledges was Trump’s commitment to lower prices for gasoline at the pump.
Not even the most partisan politico can claim Trump has failed to deliver on that one, at least not with a straight face. Throughout the summer driving season, consumers have enjoyed the lowest gas prices in four years in 2025, with little reason to anticipate those prices to move higher in the near future, as the global market for crude oil remains somewhat oversupplied.
Obviously, there are many factors that influence crude prices, which are largely determinative of gas prices at the pump. Just as obviously, most of those factors are beyond the ability of any U.S. president to control. Thus, Trump and his team are enjoying the benefits of governing during a soft global market.
But there is no question that Trump policies have helped create the conditions for that softening market. After the Brent index for international trades saw its 2025 peak at over $81 per barrel during the waning days of the Biden administration, Trump inherited a robust global price of $79.10 when inaugurated on Jan. 20. That is 40% above the $55/bbl price Joe Biden inherited from Trump in January 2021, and 17% higher than the current Brent index price of $68/bbl as of this writing.
Traders on that global market have observed as Trump and his key energy-related cabinet members like Chris Wright at the Energy Department, Doug Burgum at Interior, Lee Zeldin at EPA, and Sean Duffy at Transportation have gone about systematically reversing a vast swath of the Biden-era’s restrictive energy policy agenda. While no one expects another big drilling boom to take place in the United States, Trump’s “Build, baby, Build” agenda to incentivize a major expansion of energy-related infrastructure is setting the stage for additional volumes of U.S. crude, liquified natural gas (LNG), and other petroleum liquids to pour onto the global markets.
Projected major new additions in LNG export capacity also raise the prospect for increased drilling for natural gas in U.S. shale plays. The Marcellus shale in the northeast remains America’s largest natural gas resource, with a significant portion of its production south to Gulf Coast facilities and onto global LNG markets. The Haynesville shale and other Gulf Coastal formations also produce high volumes of exported gas, along with the prolific Permian Basin of west Texas and southeastern New Mexico, where each well produces large volumes of associated gas along with oil production.
Despite the maturity of these major shale plays, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projects overall U.S. oil production to keep rising through at least 2028, with gas production increasing for a decade longer, due to high export demand and the Trump administration’s elimination of Biden-era restrictions.
Burgum’s efforts at the Interior Department to revitalize federal onshore and offshore lease sales holds the promise for discovery and development of new crude oil reserves needed to help meet rising global demand well into the future. The U.S. military’s ongoing presence in the Middle East, working to ensure the continued free flow of 20% of global daily oil supplies out of the Persian Gulf without even a hiccup during the recent conflict between Israel and Iran has calmed tensions in that critical region, reducing the “fear premium” in crude prices to near-zero.
Add these calming, supply-side signals by the Trump administration to ongoing increases in monthly supply by the OPEC+ cartel and softening demand from China, and lower crude prices become an inevitable outcome. With the high-demand summer driving season now nearing its end, there is little reason to anticipate higher prices anytime soon.
It all boils down to a happy, low-cost summer for U.S. drivers, thanks to a promise kept by this second Trump presidency.
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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