Louisiana Voice

It isn’t exactly a chicken-or-egg puzzle, but a questions Americans should be asking is the Trump war is exacerbating the current inflationary trend brought on by skyrocketing gasoline prices, which have an unquestionable ripple effect on the entire economy, or are the big oil companies somehow taking full advantage of the situation in order to gouge consumers?

If the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz was truly the sole cause of the squeeze being felt by consumers, it would stand to reason to assume the oil companies would also be feeling the effects of a negatively-impacted international oil market. I mean, we’re all in this together, right?

Wrong.

ExxonMobil and Chevron on Friday REPORTED COMBINED $26.5 BILLION in profits during the second quarter of this year. Chevron’s earnings for the second quarter were $12 billion, a $2.4 billion increase over the same quarter a year ago—when there was no Iran war. It was Chevron’s biggest profit since 2020.

ExxonMobil’s earnings, also announced on Friday, were $14.5 billion, more than double what was reported by the company for the same quarter of a year ago. Shell also reported earnings that doubled its quarterly profits from a year ago.

The record earnings had such a bad look that The Washington Post had a headline that read, “As drivers get sticker shock, bit oil gets a windfall.”

Is it a coincidence that in 2024, candidate Trump ASKED BIG OIL TO CONTRIGUTE $1 BILLION to his campaign and he would roll back Biden environmental regulations, including tax credits for electric vehicles and would cut spending for the development of wind power, both of which could make a dent in Big Oil’s earnings if continued at the same rate?

When asked about the windfall profits reported by the oil companies, a White House spokesperson attempted not-so-deftly to divert attention from the firms to Iran with the by-now empty pledge that “oil and gas prices will plummet back to pre-conflict levels” when the U.S. disables Iran’s blockade to the flow of crude. Well, that little conflict was supposed to be over in a couple of weeks (anyone else notice it’s always “two weeks” with every single promise Trump makes). It’s now been five months with no resolution in sight.

Meanwhile, Big Oil continues to take full advantage of the situation by gouging Americans at the gas pump.