What were the lowest and highest gas prices under Trump?
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Executive summary
The national average price for regular gasoline dropped below $2.00 per gallon during Donald Trump’s first term — the low point came in April 2020 amid the COVID‑19 demand collapse, a fact tracked and explained by fact‑checkers citing Energy Information Administration data [1]. Sources compiled here do not agree on a single, widely reported numerical "peak" during Trump’s 2017–2021 presidency, but analysts and summaries show that average prices during his term generally stayed under $3.00 per gallon and that the national average was $2.38 when he left office [2] [3].
1. The clear low: sub‑$2 in the pandemic trough
The most concrete and widely cited low point under Trump is the April 2020 collapse in pump prices, when national averages fell below $2.00 per gallon as pandemic lockdowns crushed demand; Snopes, relying on U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) figures, documents that national averages dropped below $2 during Trump’s presidency [1], and multiple contemporaneous accounts describe gasoline in 2020 as the second‑lowest levels since 2004 [2].
2. The murkier high: no single widely sourced peak in the reporting provided
Public reporting assembled here does not provide a single authoritative “highest” national average number for the entire 2017–2021 Trump term; Forbes’ analysis frames Trump’s four‑year span as one in which presidential‑term averages stayed below $3.00 per gallon (meaning the term‑high was generally under that threshold), and the national average the week he left office is documented as $2.38 by a PolitiFact check [2] [3], which constrains how high the average could be at term end but does not identify an absolute peak earlier in the term.
3. Why reporting disagrees and where responsibility actually lies
Gasoline prices are driven largely by global oil markets, seasonal demand and shocks — for example, the pandemic demand collapse that produced the April 2020 low — and not by a president’s day‑to‑day decisions alone; analysts cited by Forbes and fact‑checkers emphasize that long‑term price movements usually reflect market forces rather than discrete presidential actions [4] [2]. This is important because some political messaging and administration press releases assert credit or blame for pump prices without acknowledging the dominant role of market factors and temporary shocks [5] [6].
4. Common political claims versus the documented record
Political statements about extremes at the pump have frequently been debunked or put into context: claims that gas was as low as $1.86 when Trump left office were rated false and corrected to the documented $2.38 national average for that week [3], and more recent assertions about widespread sub‑$2 or sub‑$2.50 nationwide prices have been shown to be true only for very small numbers of stations or to reflect localized promotions rather than national averages [7] [1]. Both partisan White House messaging and fact‑checking organizations appear throughout the record, each with implicit agendas — administration releases emphasizing low prices [5] [6] and independent outlets emphasizing the market context and corrections [3] [1].
5. Bottom line and reporting limitations
The documented low during Trump’s first term is clear: national average regular gasoline fell below $2.00 per gallon in April 2020 [1]. The assembled sources here constrain the upper bound — term averages stayed under $3.00 per gallon and the national average when Trump left office was $2.38 — but do not provide a single universally cited peak figure for the entire 2017–2021 period in the excerpts provided, so a precise numeric “highest” national average during Trump’s term cannot be stated from these sources alone [2] [3]. For a single definitive high point, consult the EIA weekly national average time series, which fact‑checkers and analysts cite when documenting both troughs and peaks [1].