Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, accused President Donald Trump on Monday of deliberately launching two simultaneous economic and military conflicts — a global trade war and a shooting war with Iran — and said the president is now passing the resulting costs directly onto American households and businesses. The statement, posted to X on August 3, arrives as oil markets swing sharply on Trump’s on-again, off-again threats against Tehran, and as several of the world’s largest oil companies report some of their highest quarterly profits in years.
Reed’s post read in full: “TRUMP CAUSING PAIN AT THE PUMP: President Trump chose to initiate two costly, destabilizing international conflicts: global trade tariffs and a war against Iran. In both cases, Trump is forcing American consumers and businesses to bear higher costs.”
A Recurring Line of Attack
Monday’s post is not an isolated jab. Reed has repeatedly tied Trump’s tariff agenda and his war against Iran together as twin drivers of higher costs for Americans, framing both as choices made by the president rather than external shocks. In April, Reed said responsibly ending both the trade war and the war with Iran is critical for the country’s national security and economic future, warning that congressional Republicans shielding the administration from accountability risked exposing the country to stagflation and even recession.
“The Person Responsible” for the Oil Shock
Reed has been especially direct in placing blame for gas prices on the president personally. Visiting a gas station earlier this year, Reed said the person responsible for the oil price shock is President Trump, and argued that while the war is being fought overseas, filling stations are where the policy translates into a receipt that families can see and feel. He said households already stretched thin were being hit by the war in Iran on top of the tariffs the administration has imposed on trading partners.
Inflation Tied Directly to the War
As inflation data ticked upward this spring, Reed connected the trend explicitly to the conflict, saying at the time that Trump’s illegal tariffs and weak handling of the economy were forcing hardworking Americans to keep paying artificially high prices for everything from gasoline to groceries to electricity and health care. He said the pace of Trump-era inflation was erasing wage gains and eating into savings.
No Endgame, According to Reed
Reed has also criticized the administration for continuing strikes on Iran without a clear strategic objective, arguing that the war has pushed up the price of oil by roughly 30 percent over the past year while failing to shift the underlying balance of power in the region. He said Trump is really forcing Americans to pay higher costs, comparing the dynamic to the tariffs, and called on the administration to be more transparent with the public about the facts of the war.
Sanctions Relief and a Potential Windfall for Tehran
Reed has separately criticized the administration for temporarily easing sanctions on Iranian and Russian oil exports even as the war continued, arguing the moves undercut the administration’s own stated aims. He said the administration failed to strategically prepare for the economic and diplomatic side of the conflict, and that President Trump now looks flustered and unprepared as oil prices have climbed. Reed also estimated the relief on Iranian sanctions could hand Tehran’s government a windfall of up to $14 billion.
Reed joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and several colleagues in a joint statement making a similar point, arguing that easing sanctions on a regime the U.S. is actively at war with made little sense while American service members were being put in danger by the same conflict.
Big Oil’s Record Quarter
Reed’s Monday post lands amid fresh evidence of the profits flowing to major oil companies during the conflict. According to the New York Times, international oil prices averaged around $96 a barrel in the second quarter of 2026, up 45 percent from a year earlier, and Exxon Mobil reported second-quarter earnings of $14.53 billion — more than double what it earned in the same period of 2025. Chevron’s profit soared to $12.07 billion from $2.49 billion a year earlier, and Shell’s earnings tripled to $10.82 billion. France’s TotalEnergies more than doubled its quarterly profit to $5.44 billion, with the company’s chief executive describing the Strait of Hormuz as an intermittent battleground.
Trump himself has publicly criticized the same companies for what he has called excessive profits, even as his administration has resisted proposals for a windfall profits tax of the kind European countries imposed after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — an idea that faces long odds in a Congress where Republicans, generally sympathetic to the oil industry, control both chambers.
Prices Whipsaw as Trump Cancels a Strike
The gas-price picture Reed described on Monday was, by that same afternoon, already shifting again. Reuters reported that oil prices fell about 7 percent to a three-week low after Trump held off on a new attack on Iran, saying he hoped to secure a quick deal that could boost Gulf oil supplies. Brent crude settled at $83.77 a barrel and U.S. crude at $80.34, with both U.S. gasoline and diesel prices falling roughly 5 percent during the session.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry, however, disputed Trump’s characterization of ongoing talks, with a spokesman saying no negotiations with the United States were under way and no meetings were scheduled. Analysts at Ritterbusch and Associates described the market reaction as an overreaction to Trump’s comments, noting the president has repeatedly announced plans for major strikes on Iran only to pull back at the last moment.
Shipping Disruptions Continue in the Gulf
The volatility comes as shipping through the region remains disrupted. Reuters reported that six Saudi-flagged supertankers changed course in the Gulf of Aden after threats from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi movement to target Saudi vessels, while tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowed following reports of attacks on ships. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz before the United States and Israel began bombing Iran on February 28. OPEC+ approved a modest production increase of about 188,000 barrels per day starting in September, but export disruptions tied to the wars in both Iran and Ukraine have limited how much of that increase reaches the market.
A Broader Affordability Fight
Reed’s Monday post is part of a broader Democratic effort to tie the war and the tariffs together as a single affordability issue heading into the fall. Researchers at Brown University, cited in Reed’s earlier statement on gas prices, estimated that Trump’s war with Iran had already imposed a $25.7 billion energy burden on American consumers compared with pre-war levels, working out to roughly $196 per Rhode Island household in additional gas and diesel costs alone.
As the Armed Services Committee’s ranking Democrat, Reed has framed the war’s economic fallout as inseparable from questions about its strategic justification, arguing repeatedly that the administration never made a public case for war before launching strikes on Iran. Monday’s post continues that pattern, pairing the tariffs and the war as two policy choices — not external events — for which Reed says American consumers and businesses are now footing the bill.