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The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline is still over $3, and no state has an average price below $2.60. But since mid-April, President Donald Trump has falsely claimed, repeatedly, that gasoline prices “hit $1.98 a gallon” in multiple states. Now we may know his source.
Before publishing our April 24 story about the president’s inaccurate claims of much lower gasoline prices, we asked the White House for supporting evidence. Officials didn’t provide any.
After Trump made the $1.98 gasoline claim again, on social media May 2, CNBC reported that Trump was likely referring to the trading price for RBOB, a form of gasoline called reformulated blendstock for oxygenate blending. That price isn’t what drivers pay at the pump.
“When asked by CNBC whether the president was referencing RBOB, Trump administration officials pointed to the contract’s recent price action [dropping below $2 per gallon],” Spencer Kimball, a CNBC energy reporter, wrote in a May 5 article.
We contacted the White House to confirm the report, but we received no reply.
RBOB is an unfinished gasoline product that is “intended for blending with oxygenates,” such as ethanol, “to produce finished reformulated gasoline,” according to the Energy Information Administration. Before it’s mixed to make gasoline that goes in vehicles, RBOB is traded as a commodity.
For example, contracts for RBOB futures traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange sold for between $1.96 per gallon and $1.99 per gallon for a few days in April, down from about $2.11 when Trump took office on Jan. 20.
EIA says: “In addition to trading physical quantities of petroleum products, market participants can also use futures contracts to buy or sell gasoline and distillate for future delivery, or to hedge or speculate on future price movements.”
Prior to Trump’s inauguration, the RBOB trading price on the NYMEX was most recently below $2 per gallon in December, when Joe Biden was president. As of May 7, the price was roughly $2.06.
But the cost for RBOB is considered to be a kind of wholesale price. It excludes state and federal taxes, as well as other manufacturing, distribution and marketing costs that go into determining the final fuel price that consumers see at gas stations.
“It does not come anywhere near explaining what consumers are paying,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, which tracks fuel prices, told CNBC about the RBOB trading price.
“It would be irrelevant to the consumer to know what the price of RBOB is because they’re not paying the wholesale price of RBOB,” he said.
If Trump has been referring to the price for RBOB all along, he has misled the public by comparing it with previously high gasoline prices paid by drivers. (Trump has also misleadingly referred to wholesale prices, instead of retail prices, when claiming that the cost of eggs is down significantly.)
“Prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline,” Trump said in a “Meet the Press” interview that aired May 4. “It went up to $3.90, even $4. And in California, $5 and $6. Right? Okay. I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now.”
We’d also note, as we’ve written before, that presidents don’t control gasoline prices, as Trump’s comment suggested. The price is mainly determined by the cost of crude oil, which is set on the global market based largely on supply and demand.
Furthermore, for consumers nationwide, the average price of regular grade gasoline was $3.15 per gallon the week ending May 5, according to EIA data. That was up from about $3.11 per gallon when Trump began his second term earlier this year. Prices had been as high as $5 a gallon in 2022.
As for individual states, AAA said the lowest average price on May 7 was roughly $2.65 per gallon in Mississippi.
GasBuddy figures show similar national and state average prices.
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