Gasoline prices are up 40.5% year-over-year. Inflation hit 4.2% in May — the sharpest climb since April 2023. And President Trump just went on Truth Social to tell gas stations to start targeting "around the $2.50 a Gallon number" or face "big problems ahead."
Trump posted the demand using the word "IMMEDIATELY" in all caps — his preferred font for non-negotiable instructions. The national average for regular gasoline sat at $3.81 per gallon in late June, according to AAA. The gap between what companies pay for inputs and what consumers pay at the register has become a political problem that Trump clearly intends to solve with public pressure rather than price controls.
Walmart responded. Trump followed up in July noting the retailer had cut ground beef prices by "almost 15%" and called the move something done "at my Administration's request to celebrate our great Country's 250th birthday." He urged other companies to "follow the lead of these absolute Patriots."
The reaction from the economics establishment was predictable. Paasha Mahdavi, a UC Santa Barbara political scientist, called it "a crazy turn for a conservative government" and a "socialist, hyper-populist playbook." Michael Strain at the American Enterprise Institute described the approach as having "a flailing-about quality" that shows "how much trouble the president is in because everything is so expensive." Ryan Bourne at the Cato Institute warned of "a general corruption of market economics."
A White House official pushed back, telling the Financial Times that "the actual substance beyond the rhetoric is unambiguously free market" — no regulations, no mandates, just a president using the bully pulpit to shame companies sitting on cost savings while their customers absorb the hit.
The critics have a point about orthodoxy. This isn't Milton Friedman. But the numbers tell the real story — Trump's job approval sits at 36%, down two points from the previous month, in a Focaldata poll of 1,795 registered voters conducted June 26-30 with a margin of error of ±2.7 percentage points. The man isn't tweeting about gas prices because he's bored. He's doing it because 4.2% inflation is a political emergency and he knows who feels it most.
The Cato Institute can worry about theoretical market corruption. The guy filling his truck at $3.81 a gallon wants to know why his costs went up 40% while corporate margins stayed fat.
Walmart cut beef prices. Gas stations got put on notice. Whether you call it populism or presidential jawboning, it's a president publicly choosing the consumer over the quarterly earnings call. The free market purists will note that's not how it's supposed to work. The grocery bill says the old way wasn't working either.
