The expression says it all. The orange menace hasn't a clue.
Says one thing, does another so what else is new?
President Donald Trump is facing an energy dilemma if the Iran conflict goes on.
It will.
In January 2025, the newly elected President Donald Trump declared a “national energy emergency” during his inaugural address. His proposed remedy included a pledge to refill the country’s emergency petroleum reserves.
“We will bring prices down, fill our strategic reserves up again right to the top, and export American energy all over the world,” Trump said.
The president didn’t set a deadline for himself to do so—but in retrospect, an expedient one might have been useful. A little over a year after his declaration, the U.S. is heavily involved in a conflict in the Middle East that has left a hole in globally traded petroleum supply and caused U.S. gas prices to jump. And the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a supply buffer designed to mitigate price shocks by stockpiling emergency stores of crude oil, remains nowhere near full.
The reserve currently holds 416 million barrels of crude oil, out of a maximum capacity of 714 million barrels—around 58%, according to the Department of Energy’s latest inventory report from Feb. 18. Since Trump began his second term, the reserve’s volume has only risen by around 5%.
The Department of Energy did not immediately reply to Fortune’s requests for comment. When reached for comment, the White House directed Fortune to a joint statement released Monday by finance ministers in G7 countries—the U.S., Canada, Germany, Italy, France, the U.K., and Japan. In the statement, ministers wrote they would respond with coordinated action to escalating consequences from the war in Iran, including, if necessary, a “stockpile release.”
It's necessary.
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