President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he will tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to counter rising energy costs stemming from the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation in Iran.
Oil prices have swung wildly since Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28, reaching nearly $120 a barrel on Monday.
In after-hours trading Wednesday, Brent crude stood at $93.05 a barrel, about 1.16% higher than the opening price of $91.98, according to Google Finance.
"Well, we'll do that and then we'll fill it up," Trump told WKRC-TV in Cincinnati during a visit to pharmaceutical and biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific.
"I filled it up once and I'll fill it up again, but right now we'll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down."
Trump’s comments came after the International Energy Agency said earlier Wednesday that its member countries would release 400 million barrels from emergency stocks, the largest distribution in its history, to lower crude prices that have surged since the conflict in Iran began.
The release would more than double the agency’s previous largest distribution, when IEA member countries in 2022 put 182 million barrels on the market after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
Former President Joe Biden released nearly 300 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve during his term to curb rising oil prices, including about 180 million over six months in 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, Fortune reported Monday.
Biden’s actions reduced the reserve to its lowest level since 1983, about 350 million barrels, after Trump ended his first term with the reserve at roughly 638 million barrels.
In March 2020, during Trump’s first term, oil prices crashed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump directed the Energy Department to purchase 77 million barrels to "fill it to the top," but funding for the purchase was blocked by the Democratic-led Congress.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright said that the release will begin next week and will take approximately 120 days to deliver.
Although Trump declared a "national energy emergency" in early 2025 and pledged to refill the reserve, inventory has risen only about 5% since he took office because of limited congressional funding.
The reserve now stands at about 416 million barrels, according to Fortune.
"Oil prices will be coming down," Trump told reporters at Thermo Fisher Scientific before moving on to speak in Kentucky.
"That’s just a matter of war, that happens … you can almost predict it.
"I would say it went up a little bit less than we thought and it’s going to come down more than anybody understands," Trump said.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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