This is one outlet's own report from Newsweek — the article as it was filed. Other outlets are covering the same event; open the full story to compare every source side by side.
Trump Slams Exxon and Chevron Iran War Windfalls. Can He Do Anything?
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. President Donald Trump has said America’s oil majors are making “too much money” as a result of the Iran war, and has urged companies to lower their prices or share the windfall profits they have enjoyed thanks to ongoing energy market disruptions.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, the president took aim at Chevron and ExxonMobil for the substantial gains both reaped in the second quarter, driven primarily by elevated global fuel costs, and said that the two companies should distribute these earnings among their retail customers.
“And I should be the last one to say [that] because I’m a big free enterprise guy,” Trump said, while adding that the pair should “give some of that back to the public, and they better cut the retail price.”
Separately, in a series of posts to Truth Social, Trump urged American oil companies to “Get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!"
Newsweek contacted both companies on Monday for comment.
Global oil prices were pushed close to all-time highs this spring, as the effective blockade on ships through the Strait of Hormuz—through which around a fifth of global oil typically flows—severely restricted supplies, and gas prices have likewise soared to levels not witnessed since the 2022 energy crisis.
While these had begun to climb down in June on the back of progress in negotiations between the two warring sides, the national average for regular unleaded has since returned to $4.08 as of Wednesday, according to AAA .
The boom translated into substantial earnings gains for both companies during the second quarter. Exxon posted $14.5 billion in profit for the three months which ended June 30, more than double the comparable period in 2025. Chevron’s net income, meanwhile, came in 380 percent higher than the same quarter last year at $12.1 billion.
Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group, told Newsweek that the profits taken in by oil majors were primarily due to the Iran war and related shipping disruptions, but also the recent Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries which have “contributed to upward pressure on prices.”
In late June, Trump said he had ordered the Justice Department to “immediately start looking into” whether oil companies were taking advantage of consumers , whom he said were being “gouged.”
The American Petroleum Institute (API), the national trade association representing the U.S. oil and natural gas industry, rejected the price-gouging accusations in a statement shared with Newsweek at the time.
"Our industry shares the goal of delivering relief at the pump and restoring stability to global energy markets," said API spokesperson Bethany Williams. "Gasoline prices don't move in lockstep with crude oil, especially during a major global disruption that is still affecting supply, refining and inventories."
The DOJ later urged states to join in the probe, calling on them to use “all tools available” to investigate any misconduct that could be inflating retail gas prices.
Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Chair Andrew Ferguson told state attorneys general in a July 3 letter that they would be “closely monitoring petroleum markets” for potential “agreements between competitors to fix prices, rig bids, and allocate markets.”
“We urge state law enforcers to join us in investigating illegal practices,” they wrote, before adding that “business may not use market volatility as cover for anticompetitive practices, fraud, or any other lawlessness that harms Americans.”
Experts who spoke with Newsweek believe there are tools at the administration's disposal which could steer companies in the direction Trump hopes, but appear divided on whether the president will choose to use these.
McNally told Newsweek the government could impose a windfall tax—higher levies on companies that enjoy a sudden earnings jump due to external events—a measure last taken on oil majors by President Jimmy Carter in the 1980s. He also cited the temporary price controls imposed by Richard Nixon in the 1970s, but said he did not believe Trump would take any such concrete actions to pressure companies to either “give some…back” of their war-derived profits or “cut the retail price.”
The economist Willy C. Shih, a professor at Harvard Business School, said Trump may also be under a misapprehension when it comes to the impact of market forces on supply and demand during the ongoing crisis.
“The high prices brought more supply onto the market. So now the President says he doesn’t like the fact that high prices (and profits that are driven by a percentage margin) meant the oil majors made more money? That’s the way the market works,” he told Newsweek.
"So which way do you want it? Do you want high prices (and profits for some players) to bring more supply onto the market or not? It’s hard to have it both ways.”
Tyler Gellasch, a former Senate investigator and President of the Healthy Markets Association, told Newsweek that there were both “explicit” and “implicit” actions the president could take if he truly wanted to pressure oil majors into dropping prices and sharing profits.
He noted that the oil and gas industries benefit from tax subsidies and advantages that the Trump administration could work with Congress to roll back, or lean on a president’s “longer-term leverage” and continue pressuring them publicly to change course.
Gellasch said he would ordinarily expect an administration—particularly a Republican one—to refrain from such actions. However, he said that the Federal government has over the last 18 months engaged in “a level of government interventionism that is something unlike what we have ever seen,” citing such actions as the equity stake it acquired in Intel .
“We’re seeing a new age of government interventionism...
AIPROPX is an independent multi-source news index — we track, compare, and connect coverage from across the web into one place you won't find anywhere else.
