‘Affordability’ Is A Trojan Horse For Democrats To Bring Back The Biden Years
No matter what Democrats are saying about 'affordability,' trust that their priorities are anything but lowering prices.No matter what Democrats are saying about 'affordability,' trust that their priorities are anything but lowering prices.Democrats can’t discourage oil investment and demand cheap gas
America can produce more crude oil and still fail to put much more gasoline in a driver’s tank. Between the well and the pump stand pipelines, refineries, and investments that take years to build. Politicians who promise affordability while making that work harder have a problem no campaign slogan can fix.
Americans don’t need another lecture about why they should accept higher electric bills. They need leaders willing to confront the policies that make energy harder to produce and deliver. Every family heating a home, filling a gas tank, or buying groceries pays the price. When energy gets more expensive, the cost works its way through nearly everything else.
You cannot campaign against an industry’s future and act surprised when companies hesitate to finance it.
The left wants credit for caring about working families. Its energy agenda should be judged by what those families can afford. Promises of a greener future offer little comfort to someone deciding which bill to pay late.
Affordability requires abundant energy, dependable infrastructure, and the freedom to build.
Start with gasoline. Expanding American oil production helps, but crude must travel through pipelines, reach refineries, and become usable fuel before it can get a parent to work. An energy agenda must follow the barrel all the way to the pump.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, American refineries operated at 96.5% of their operable capacity in June and July. That leaves little slack during peak summer demand. More crude cannot automatically produce a matching increase in gasoline output when refineries are already running close to capacity.
EIA identifies Marathon’s Garyville, Louisiana, facility, which opened in 1977, as the newest U.S. refinery with significant downstream processing capacity. Smaller refineries have opened since, and existing facilities have expanded considerably. Processing capacity deserves as much attention as drilling.
Democrats advocating a rapid retreat from petroleum should explain why investors would commit billions to infrastructure those same politicians want the country to stop using. You cannot campaign against an industry’s future and act surprised when companies hesitate to finance it.
China understands that industrial power requires physical infrastructure. The International Energy Agency’s 2025 investment report projected approximately $88 billion in Chinese transmission and distribution investment that year, alongside enormous investments in generation and storage. Beijing is building an energy system to support its industrial ambitions.
RELATED: The GOP can’t blame Biden forever for pain at the pump
America should compete through private enterprise, innovation, and the freedom to build. Those advantages cannot carry us far if our political system rewards short-term promises while long-term projects languish.
Members of the House face voters every two years. That accountability is essential, but the calendar also encourages projects that pay political dividends before the next election. A transmission upgrade won’t make a thrilling television ad. Refinery modernization won’t produce a viral moment. The infrastructure Americans depend on rarely makes a consultant’s highlight reel.
The temptation is to campaign on lower prices while ignoring the construction needed to deliver them. Republicans should resist it. A two-year election cycle cannot excuse the failure to plan 20 years ahead.
Our competitors benefit when American projects stall. Every unnecessary delay lets another chance to manufacture, innovate, or expand slip away.
And demand is growing. America wants to lead in artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing. Both require dependable electricity. The IEA projects that data centers will account for roughly half of U.S. electricity demand growth through 2030.
Conservatives should welcome that investment and insist on the capacity to support it: natural gas, nuclear power, more transmission, and renewables competing on cost and performance. Families need electricity during extreme weather. Hospitals need it around the clock. Reliability must guide these decisions.
RELATED: Affordable energy is on the ballot in November
Large data-center developers should also pay the infrastructure costs their projects create. A retired couple should not finance a technology giant through a higher utility bill. Supporting business does not require handing its expenses to everyone else.
Permitting reform belongs at the center of the conservative agenda. Establish clear environmental standards, impose firm deadlines for decisions, and let responsible developers build when they meet the requirements. Communities deserve a voice. Investors deserve an answer. Endless uncertainty serves neither.
Americans also deserve to choose vehicles and household equipment that fit their finances and daily lives. New technology should win customers on performance and value. Politicians imposing mandates should answer for their costs.
Republicans must deliver completed projects, greater supply, and dependable service. Affordable energy allows a farmer to operate, a manufacturer to compete, a small business to hire, and a family to keep more of its paycheck.
America has the resources, expertise, and workers to build a stronger energy system. Conservatives should judge their leaders by completed projects, expanding supply, and reliable service — not promises recycled every two years. Campaign slogans cannot power a factory or heat a home.
Insane console prices are crushing gamers — just weeks before Grand Theft Auto VI arrives
Thirteen years have passed since the last Grand Theft Auto launched to critical acclaim. Now, at long last, GTA VI is almost here, but thanks to the AI boom, prices on current consoles are skyrocketing, and next-gen hardware is expected to be even worse. Here’s why you might have to pay more to play this November.
If you already own a compatible game console, you’re among the lucky ones who aren’t affected by the ever-increasing gadget prices that hit gamers particularly hard starting early this year. If you don’t have a console though, or if you own the wrong game console, it’s going to cost you a pretty penny for the privilege to play GTA VI on launch day.
Most of these consoles are six years old, and instead of dropping in price, they’ve gone up.
GTA VI is a new-generation game packed to the brim with the latest graphical technology powered by Rockstar Games' Rockstar Advanced Game Engine. A quick glance at the extended teaser from August shows stunningly realistic lighting and textures, extreme precision on fine details like strands of hair, and a dense world ready to be explored. In short, you will need a powerful console to play GTA VI, which is probably why your options are so limited.
The game will only be compatible with four consoles at launch — PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, Xbox Series X, and Xbox Series S. Anything else is obsolete. That means GTA VI won’t run on the Nintendo Switch 2, nor is it playable on an old PlayStation 4 or Xbox One.
You can’t even play GTA VI on PC or handhelds, like Steam Deck. This isn’t due to a technical limitation though. Rockstar intentionally made GTA VI a console exclusive for the first several months, leaving PC players out to dry until Q1 2027, when it is rumored to release more broadly.
Naturally, the PlayStation 5 Pro and Xbox Series X are the preferred consoles that deliver the best graphical experience. Unfortunately, both of these consoles, and their lower-powered siblings, are more expensive today than they were when they launched in 2020 and 2024.
Everything is more expensive
In August, Xbox raised the cost of Series X and Series S by $100 for the 512GB options and $150 for the 1TB versions. This is on top of the $20-$70 price hike from October of last year. If you want to buy one of these consoles today, you’ll pay:
- Xbox Series S (512GB) – $499.99
- Xbox Series S (1TB) – $599.99
- Xbox Series X (1TB Digital Edition) – $749.99
- Xbox Series X (1TB) – $799.99
- Xbox Series X25 Limited Edition – $899.99
PlayStation isn’t any better. Sony raised prices in August as well, adding another $100-$150 to its product lineup. If you want a new PlayStation today, you’ll pay:
- PlayStation 5 Digital Edition (825GB) – $599
- PlayStation 5 (1TB) – $649
- PlayStation 5 Pro (2TB) – $899
The irony here is that most of these consoles — with the exception of PlayStation 5 Pro that came out in 2024 — are six years old. Instead of dropping in price — which is what usually happens to aging technology before the next big thing comes to replace it — they’ve gone up, thanks to supply chain shortages spurred on by AI.
Lastly, the game — GTA VI itself — is also more expensive. GTA V launched at $60 for the standard version. Yes, the last game came out in 2013, so you’d expect prices to shift over more than a decade. However, the $60 base price tag for games in general stuck around for a long time before jumping up to $70 in 2020. To play GTA VI though, that one will set you back $79.99 for the Standard Edition and $99.99 for the Ultimate Edition, which gives you special vehicles, weapons, and clothing items for the main characters.
RELATED: This top video game company is betting its future on something gamers hate
No hope for the next generation
For those who need a gaming console to play GTA VI, you might just write this generation off for what’s coming next. The next-gen consoles are rumored to roll out in several more years, but if you think you’ll get one for a decent price, think again. With supply chain shortages refusing to go away, the prices for the next consoles are expected to be even worse.
The new Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, could reportedly cost up to $1,800, making it Microsoft’s most expensive console ever. That’s a big ask for gamers who are used to paying a fraction of that on new hardware. That said, Project Helix is more than just a console. It will supposedly be closer to a hybrid console/PC with support for Xbox games and PC games. Whether the added capability is worth the higher price is up to you.
The next-generation PlayStation will also be more expensive. Rumors suggest it could cost up to $1,000 MSRP, largely due to RAM and NAND costs taking up $680 of that price tag. Unlike Xbox, the next PlayStation likely won’t have PC game support, and it may not have a disc drive since Sony is officially ending disc game releases in 2028.
Brace yourself for more
Gaming is just one industry affected by the supply chain shortages. Prices for all electronics, including phones, laptops, tablets, and more, have all gone up by 17%-42%, depending on the device. There’s real volatility in the market, and it’s impossible to predict how these prices will fluctuate throughout the holidays and into 2027.
At the same time, data shows that the AI bubble may be primed to burst. If that happens, the supply chains would get a much needed break from the AI onslaught, potentially freeing up resources to lower prices for consumers. Unfortunately, we would have bigger problems as AI investors would have billions of dollars in debt with no way to recoup, and AI would no longer be the economic engine that some said it would be.
But hey, until then, at least we have the hottest game of the year coming out soon. Grand Theft Auto VI is available now for preorder, and it will launch on PlayStation and Xbox on Thursday, November 19, 2026.
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
When your desperation becomes part of the price
Prices once reflected the product and the market. Increasingly, they can also reflect what a company knows — or thinks it knows — about you.
Surveillance pricing uses personal data, behavioral tracking, and algorithms to estimate what a consumer may be willing to pay. If the system can infer that you are in a hurry, financially stressed, or unlikely to walk away, your vulnerability can become part of the calculation.
Companies watch us. We deserve tools to watch them back and make exploitation costly.
Websites, apps, and data brokers can collect or infer information from searches, purchases, location, browsing history, and even mouse movements. Combined, those signals can build a detailed profile of what you want and how price-sensitive you may be.
The Federal Trade Commission began investigating this market in 2024, issuing orders to eight companies. Its initial findings showed that intermediaries serving at least 250 clients could use granular data to tailor prices, discounts, and product offers. The FTC cautioned that its published examples were “hypothetical.”
Surveillance pricing differs from ordinary dynamic pricing, in which prices move with inventory, time, or demand. Surveillance pricing is personal: the price, discount, financing term, or product placement can vary according to a consumer profile or group. The change may be subtle — a withheld discount, a costlier product ranked first, or a different financing offer.
The idea is older than the AI boom
In 2012, a Wall Street Journal investigation found that Staples.com displayed different prices after estimating customers’ locations. Shoppers near an OfficeMax or Office Depot were more likely to receive discounts; those farther away could see higher prices for the same item.
In 2015, ProPublica found that the Princeton Review offered the same online tutoring package for $6,600 to $8,400 depending on ZIP code. Residents of heavily Asian ZIP codes were 1.8 times as likely to receive the higher price, even in lower-income areas.
The company said the pricing reflected regional business conditions rather than race. Regardless, the outcome shows how supposedly neutral data can produce serious demographic disparities.
RELATED: Seattle votes to ban grocery ‘surveillance pricing.’ Your data shouldn’t set your food bill.
Orbitz also experimented with showing Mac users pricier hotel options first after finding they were more likely to book luxury rooms. It did not charge Mac and PC users different prices for the same room, but the lesson was clear: Even device type can become a signal about what a customer may spend.
More recently, a 2025 Consumer Reports investigation found that Instacart’s AI-enabled pricing experiments offered different prices for identical groceries at the same stores and times. About three-quarters of tested products varied, with some differences reaching 23%. The investigation did not show that personal profiles determined who received which price, and Instacart later ended the program. But the experiment showed just how easy it was to target basic needs.
Your urgency can become valuable data
The troubling question is what happens when individualized pricing meets urgency.
A search for an emergency plumber at 2 a.m., last-minute airfare after a family crisis, or a baby thermometer at midnight may signal that waiting is not an option. Searches for eviction help, payday loans, or emergency medical care can reveal pressure without a company ever seeing a pay stub or medical record.
Economist Benjamin Shiller showed why such information could be valuable. In a 2020 economic model using browsing data to estimate willingness to pay for Netflix, personalized pricing increased simulated profits by 12.99%, versus roughly 0.25% using demographics alone. It was a model, not proof of a retailer secretly charging desperate consumers more, but it showed the commercial value of behavioral data.
Data brokers have long packaged financial vulnerability. A 2013 Senate investigation found categories such as “Rural and Barely Making It,” “Retiring on Empty” and “Credit Crunched.” The report warned that such lists could appeal to sellers of high-cost loans looking for people who need quick cash.
RELATED: Welcome to the new traffic stop, where it’s your word against AI’s
The balance of power shifts
Two people can see different prices, discounts, products, or financing offers on the same website and each assume everyone else received the same thing. Algorithms do not need a field labeled race, age, sex, or income to make sensitive inferences; ZIP code, device type, location, and shopping behavior can act as proxies.
Targeted pricing is not inherently abusive. It could reward loyal customers or offer discounts to families under pressure. The problem is secrecy: Sellers can know far more about buyers than buyers know about the offer in front of them.
That imbalance can turn personal data into a tool for extracting the highest price a consumer will accept. It also weakens comparison shopping when prices quietly change according to profiles the shopper cannot see.
Transparency is the minimum
Companies should disclose when personal data or AI materially shapes a price or offer and identify the categories of information involved. Regulators have a role, but entrepreneurs can also build independent tools that compare prices across accounts, devices, and locations.
Companies watch us. We need better tools to watch them back.
When a company knows you are desperate, that desperation should never become a hidden advantage it can use against you.
The real reason everything is expensive and what you can do
Joe Biden has been out of office for almost two years now — so why does everything still feel so expensive?
As midterm elections draw nearer, that’s the question on the top of American minds, and BlazeTV host Ron Simmons has some answers.
While prices are up, Simmons points out that this all began under Biden, where “prices rose about 21%.”
“That’s over 5% a year. And since that time, since the second administration of President Trump, they’ve grown a little over 2% a year, about 2.5% a year,” he explains.
“When prices grew to 21%, so if something cost a dollar and then when Biden left it cost a $1.20, it didn’t go back down to a dollar when President Trump got elected,” he says.
“What he has done, and his administration have done, is they’ve just reduced how fast it’s increasing,” he adds.
Simmons explains that prices will go down when demand goes down.
“If you remember back to 2008, 2009, when they had the huge housing crisis, well, in 2007, do you know what interest rates were for mortgages at that time? Guess what they were. They’re right what they are right now, a little over 6%,” he explains.
“People lost their jobs and things, and there was more supply than there was demand,” he continues. “So they dropped interest rates and they brought interest rates down, probably too low, honestly — artificially low — and so you could buy a house at a 3% mortgage.”
“Then when the economy got better, and the fact that we pumped a lot of unnecessary money into the economy, interest rates went up because there ended up being more demand than there was supply,” he adds.
When the demand is high, the interest rates remain high.
“Now, what we don’t want to happen is another huge recession, obviously, but just remember how this happened,” he says, pointing out that Democrat policies have led us here.
“Housing has become dramatically more expensive during the Biden years,” he continues, noting that the Heritage Foundation has reported that the cost of financing a medium-priced home has risen 114% since 2021.
“At the same time, consumer prices have risen about 20%, which we talked about, and it costs about $13,300 more per year to purchase the same house, interest-rate-wise, than it did in 2021,” he says.
“Immigration was a part of this,” he explains. “When they opened the floodgates, more people coming into the country means there’s more demand for goods and services, and that increased the cost of living and housing.”
However, Simmons points out that the most expensive cities — San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, New York, and Boston — are all run by Democrats.
“So just remember when you’re voting this time,” he adds.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
10 Ways You’re Wasting Money At The Grocery Store And What To Do Instead
Saving money on groceries doesn't mean living on instant noodles. Becoming a smarter and more flexible cook will take you to another level beyond noodles.Blame (Mostly) Biden For High Prices
While Biden policies are responsible for runaway inflation, the Trump admin has still has work to do to get costs back under control.Yes, groceries are more expensive. Now what?
Inflation. Everyone's discussing it these days, at least on X.
Is it bad? Is it fine? Are our perceptions skewed by virtue of living in 2026 which makes accurate evaluation of prices in 1996 impossible?
Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009.
It’s hard to know. Different people have different ideas on all of this and it’s hard to say one is more right than another. Sometimes there are multiple right answers.
Socialism starter
Grocery prices are insane. They’re still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It’s one of the main reasons socialists are gaining power.
He’s not wrong. Grocery prices are higher than I ever remember. Most families I know are acutely aware of the situation. When you're feeding growing kids, you can’t skimp the way you skimped when you were 21. You can’t feed them junk because it’s cheaper; you have to feed them nutritiously, and so you end up feeling those higher prices pretty sharply.
Burrito-nomics
“So far as I can tell, it's simply not true that food has gotten more expensive in real dollars in the United States. Why are people so convinced this is true? What's the evidence?”
Below his post he shared a graph detailing the fact that grocery prices have only risen in nominal terms, not real terms, essentially saying prices are higher but so are wages.
In response to claims of $20 burritos being prohibitively expensive for young people, Kauffman detailed the hard numbers for feeding burritos to a family of eight with ingredients from Wal-Mart. The total price was $18.38
Kauffman isn’t wrong either. Although my wife handles the food in our house, I do know we buy our groceries from Meijer, Aldi, and Walmart. I know there are absolutely affordable prices to be found if you don’t buy your ingredients at Whole Foods and you make your food at home rather than going out. A gallon of milk from our local Walmart is $3.17; a gallon of milk from the nearby Whole Foods is $6.69.
To his point about prices rising nominally but not in real terms, I’m not an economist or a statistician, so I don’t know all the ins and outs of how these numbers are calculated, but I do know we tend to really notice in passionate and negative terms when the prices swell at the store but we don’t really notice or account for our paycheck swelling in our bank account. It’s a sad fact that we tend to focus on the bad more than the good.
Passion for premium
Short answer is that post-boomers became accustomed to premium/boutique brands. These things do, in fact, cost a lot more than generics. No seed oils. All organic. Cage free. Etc. Etc. My family spends a lot more on groceries in *real* dollars than my parents did because, like just about everyone posting online about this, we over-extend and buy the$20 dollar bottle of nice Vermont maple syrup and $8 fancy French butter and do this across the board for almost every category [choose your own indulgence/health fixation]. I know we're not alone in this. I've seen your pantries.
The longer answer is that other categories of spending have gone significantly up — housing, childcare, insurance — and so there's less slack in the average person's budget. Grocery prices might be flat as a general matter, but the belt can still feel — and actually be — a lot tighter.
He is certainly correct, and like most other very correct answers to complex questions, the people don’t want to hear it.
In the 1990s, before the foodie revolution, our parents fed us very plain food. We rarely went out to eat, and it was a big event when we did. There were no cans of sparkling water. We never had pop in the fridge. We didn’t even really stop at fast food when traveling; we packed sandwiches in a cooler full of half-melted ice bags at the bottom.
Going to McDonald’s was an occasion back then. There weren’t 35 different kinds of IPAs in the grocery store. Arugula didn’t exist until sometime around 2009. The children of 2026 have no experience with the iceberg lettuce salad of 1996 — you know the one, with bland white crispy lettuce, large tomatoes that aren’t even close to ripe, and three fat cucumber slices.
Our kids eat guacamole, sushi, organic eggs, copious amounts of raspberries with Greek yogurt in the morning, and a bunch of other stuff I didn’t even encounter until I was in my 20s.
RELATED: Greetings from my favorite vacation spot; it's closer and cheaper than you may think
Fancy feasts
It’s a fascinating story about class and taste. How even though our society is, in many ways, more classless and lowbrow than ever, many people are eating food that really only very wealthy and very health-conscious individuals ate back in 1996, and that fact plays some role in how we perceive prices.
The thing about shifting expectations after the foodie revolution is that it doesn’t feel like any of those things that were fancy and expensive in 1996 are elite in 2026. Fresh guacamole is now the Kraft American cheese single, and now no one would eat the Kraft American cheese single, and this skews our perception.
Of course, it goes without saying that someone does eat the Kraft American cheese single. Millions of people do, just like we did. Actually, in fact, we didn’t eat the Kraft American single at the Root house in 1996 because they were considered kind of fancy and more expensive than buying a block of cheese and cutting it yourself.
Reality bites
The truth about inflation is that whether it’s real bad, pretty normal, or the end of the world as we know it, we can’t do anything about it. You, dear reader, have no way to meaningfully change the global financial system or the American economic situation at this time. These things are too big for an individual citizen to have any control over. You can’t make the prices lower, you can’t stop the bleeding, you can’t do anything other than buy what you need to buy while doing your best to stay within your budget.
We humans have a terrible tendency to focus very heavily on things we can’t really change. I don’t know why it is, but it is. Is it because we are naturally malcontent? Or is it because we are whiners with no strength? Or maybe we are masochists? Obsessing endlessly about something you view as terrible and painful when you have no way to change it seems like a form of masochism, doesn’t it?
Whatever it is, it isn’t good. We can’t focus all our energy or emotional firepower on being angry about inflation. Maybe we should be angry; maybe we shouldn’t be angry. I don’t know. But I do know that all we can do is acknowledge the reality of the world as it is, whether it be good or bad, and do our best to adapt to the current situation, live the best life we can in the meantime, and hope for the best.
That’s how it was in 1996 and how it is in 2026.
Oil could hit $200 per barrel if these conditions are met in Middle East: Citi
Brent crude, the primary global benchmark for oil prices, rose higher than $120 per barrel in early summer 2022, largely on account of the fallout from the war in Ukraine and increased demand in countries reopening after suffering through years of self-imposed COVID restrictions.
At the time, this generated a great deal of excitement and consternation, especially when U.S. gas prices soared to a record high of roughly $5 a gallon.
Americans may soon long for the days of $120 per barrel.
'Consumers continue to feel the sting of rising oil, gasoline, and diesel costs as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East remain elevated.'
Analysts at Citi said in a note on Wednesday that Brent crude — which recently saw an intraday high of nearly $120 a barrel and is presently trading over 65% above its level at the beginning of the year — could hit $200 a barrel if Tehran executes "broad energy infrastructure attacks" or keeps the Strait of Hormuz blocked until June, Investing.com reported.
Iran appears keen to satisfy both of these conditions.
Following the initial joint U.S. and Israel strikes on Feb. 28, Iran targeted energy facilities in its backyard, prompting various companies to wind down their production and shutter their facilities.
RELATED: Trump blasts allies over reluctance to join Iran conflict: 'WE DO NOT NEED THE HELP OF ANYONE!'
Qatar's state-run QatarEnergy, for instance, shut down its LNG production complex following Iranian drone strikes at two of its facilities. OilPrice.com recently noted that even if the hostilities in the region ended immediately, it could take several weeks to restart production.
On Wednesday, Tehran issued a warning via state media to several Middle Eastern oil facilities — the Samref Refinery and Jubail Petrochemical Complex in Saudi Arabia; the Al Hosn Gas Field in the United Arab Emirates; and the Mesaieed Petrochemical Complex, Mesaieed Holding Company, and Ras Laffan Refinery in Qatar — notifying them of imminent strikes "in the coming hours," Reuters reported.
"These centers have become direct and legitimate targets and will be targeted in the coming hours," the warning said. "Therefore, all citizens, residents, and employees are requested to immediately leave these areas and move to a safe distance without any delay."
The warning, which was followed by a jump in the per-barrel price of Brent crude, came in the wake of airstrikes against the South Pars gas field, the world's largest natural gas reserve which is shared by Iran and Qatar.
A source confirmed to the Jerusalem Post that several energy facilities in South Pars and the Iranian city of Asaluyeh were struck by the Israeli Air Force on Wednesday. Two senior Israeli officials told Axios that the attack was coordinated with and approved by the Trump administration.
Amid the attacks and threat of attacks on energy infrastructure, analysts at Citi wrote, "Brent prices will rally as the conflict continues over the coming days, to $110-120/bbl," adding that could be the "price or market event which drives the U.S. to end its military operation" or alternatively drives global powers to "forcefully reopen the Strait."
President Donald Trump has implored the international community to aid the U.S. in reopening the strait, emphasizing that China and other nations are far more reliant than America on the supply flowing down the strait.
According to Reuters, China received 1.6 billion barrels of crude oil over the past 14 months via the Strait of Hormuz; the rest of Asia collectively received 1.6 billion barrels; India received 1 billion barrels; Japan and South Korea each received 800 million barrels; the U.S. and Europe each received around 200 million barrels; and the rest of the world received a combined 300 million barrels.
Citing sources familiar with the matter, Bloomberg reported that Vice President JD Vance and other administration officials plan to meet at the American Petroleum Institute on Thursday to meet with oil executives.
"We look forward to convening key officials — including Vice President Vance, Energy Secretary [Chris] Wright, bipartisan leaders in Congress, and governors — to discuss the role of American oil and natural gas in supporting reliable energy supply amid global volatility," Andrea Woods, a spokeswoman for the institute, told Bloomberg. "Our industry is focused on providing insight into market dynamics and strengthening American energy leadership and resilience for the long term."
The price-tracking service GasBuddy noted that as of Monday, the national average price of gasoline was up 80 cents per gallon from a month ago and 66.1 cents higher than a year ago.
"Consumers continue to feel the sting of rising oil, gasoline, and diesel costs as geopolitical tensions in the Middle East remain elevated, pushing gasoline prices to their highest levels in years while diesel could soon approach the $5-per-gallon mark nationally," said Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.
"Until we see a meaningful resumption of oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz, upward pressure on fuel prices is likely to persist," De Haan continued. "At the same time, seasonal forces are beginning to intensify as several regions complete the transition to summer gasoline, creating a double headwind that could continue driving pump prices higher in the weeks ahead."
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Today's top stories
www.theblaze.com
www.theblaze.com
thefederalist.com
www.theblaze.com