Donald Trump’s team bragged about “lowering the price at the pump” after launching its new Freedom Fuel gas stations, but a new report suggests one of those locations charged an even lower price for fuel before the president took office.
Trump’s White House shared a video Tuesday announcing the opening of Philadelphia’s first Freedom Fuel gas station, which charges $3.47 per gallon in honor of the 47th president. There’s now a total of 25 locations across Pennsylvania and New Jersey, according to the Freedom Fuel Network’s website.
Google Maps photos reviewed by MeidasTouch News indicate the location featured in the video was once branded as a Sunoco gas station and charged customers just $2.99 per gallon in November 2024, two months before Trump’s second term began.
The White House bragged that the Freedom Fuel Network is “lowering the price at the pump” and said Trump is “leading the charge to lower gas prices this summer.” But critics have hit out at the White House, suggesting the president’s war with Iran caused gas prices to jump in the first place.
“You raise prices, then pretend when they go down you’re some savior,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger wrote on X. “Besides, all your supporters spent the last half year telling us presidents don’t control gas prices?”
“Going through all that trouble and the best they can do is $3.47 per gallon? What a joke,” said Jared Holt, a senior researcher at Open Measures, a company that monitors social media activity.
“[For what it’s worth], gas averaged $2.87 on February 1 before the war,” CBS News reporter Kathryn Watson added.
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told The Independent: “What have Democrats done to lower gas prices? Nothing.”
“In fact, the radical climate agenda the Democrat party continues to support—despite its unpopularity—would kill America’s oil and gas industry and cause prices at the pump to permanently skyrocket just like they did under Joe Biden. As these ‘critics’ have pointed out, President Trump actually has a track record of bringing gas prices down to historic lows,” Rogers added.
Fuel prices soared after Trump’s war with Iran began on Feb. 28, and by the end of March, the national average surpassed $4 per gallon for the first time since 2022. The national average didn’t fall below $4 again until mid-June, when Trump signed a memorandum of understanding with Iran.
But the ceasefire fell apart after the U.S. and Iran traded strikes this week. Speaking to reporters Wednesday, Trump threatened to “hit Iran hard again tonight.”
Mark Zandi, chief economist at the financial services firm Moody’s Analytics, estimated the Iran war has effectively cost the typical American household $1,000, citing the rising price of fuel as the “most obvious example.”
“Before the war, the national average price was comfortably below $3 per gallon. Gasoline was about the only thing we buy regularly that hadn’t become much more expensive since the pandemic. Not anymore,” he wrote on LinkedIn last month.
