Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has slammed President Joe Biden for urging oil companies to cut sky-high gas prices, prompting the White House to defend the US leader on Sunday.
“My message to the companies that operate gas stations and set prices at the pump is simple: This is a time of war and global danger,” Biden tweeted Saturday.
“Lower the price you charge at the pump to reflect the cost you pay for the product. And do it now,” Biden added.
Bezos said Biden’s comments were “either outright misdirection or a deep misunderstanding of fundamental market dynamics.”
“Ouch. Inflation is far too important an issue for the White House to continue making such statements,” the US billionaire tweeted on Saturday.
Gasoline prices at the pump have become a symbol of broader price hikes across the United States, and are weakening Biden’s approval rating ahead of November’s general election.
Biden has regularly attacked oil companies, saying they only care about profits and not the well-being of the average consumer.
The companies, in turn, say they have increased production to try to tame prices, but that these are set in the world market and are subject to dynamics not under the control of the US oil giants.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Twitter Sunday that oil prices have fallen by about $15 a barrel over the past month.
“But the prices at the pump have hardly fallen. This is not ‘fundamental market dynamics’. It’s a market that’s failing the American consumer,” she wrote.
Gasoline prices have been above $5 a gallon since early June, unprecedented in the car-mad nation. Prices have fallen slightly since then, but remain a far cry from the $3 a gallon level a year ago.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby also defended the president in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday.
“The president is working very, very hard on a lot of fronts … to try and bring that price down,” Kirby said.
He cited Biden’s proposal to suspend the federal gas tax this summer — which would need Congressional approval — and his decision to tap into US strategic oil reserves to bring more products to market.
“He knows it won’t solve all the problems, but it will help if everyone works on it. We could lower the price by at least a dollar a gallon,” Kirby said.
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