President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States will draw from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to bring down energy prices that have climbed during the ongoing U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran.

Energy markets have experienced sharp volatility since Operation Epic Fury began on Feb. 28. At one point Monday, crude oil prices approached $120 per barrel as traders reacted to concerns about supply disruptions tied to the conflict.

By Wednesday evening, prices had moderated somewhat but remained elevated. In after-hours trading, Brent crude was priced at $93.05 per barrel, about 1.16% above its opening level of $91.98, according to data from Google Finance.

Speaking during a visit to Thermo Fisher Scientific, a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company in Cincinnati, Trump said the government is prepared to use the nation’s emergency oil reserves to stabilize prices.

“Well, we’ll do that and then we’ll fill it up,” Trump told WKRC-TV in Cincinnati during a visit to pharmaceutical and biotech company Thermo Fisher Scientific.

“I filled it up once and I’ll fill it up again, but right now we’ll reduce it a little bit, and that brings the prices down.”

Trump’s remarks came shortly after the International Energy Agency announced that member countries plan to release 400 million barrels from emergency stockpiles to ease the surge in global crude prices that followed the outbreak of war in Iran.

If implemented as announced, the move would mark the largest coordinated release in the agency’s history. It would exceed the previous record set in 2022, when IEA members collectively released 182 million barrels after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.

Previous U.S. administrations also turned to the reserve during periods of market disruption. According to Fortune, President Joe Biden authorized the release of nearly 300 million barrels during his time in office in an effort to restrain rising fuel prices. That total included approximately 180 million barrels released over a six-month period in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Those withdrawals significantly reduced the reserve, leaving it at its lowest level since 1983—roughly 350 million barrels—after Trump had concluded his first term with approximately 638 million barrels stored in the reserve.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, global oil prices collapsed, prompting Trump to instruct the Energy Department to buy oil for the reserve.

At the time, he directed officials to acquire 77 million barrels in order to “fill it to the top,” but the purchase was ultimately blocked when the Democratic-controlled Congress declined to approve funding.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the newly announced release from the reserve is expected to begin next week and will take roughly 120 days to complete.

Although Trump declared a “national energy emergency” early in 2025 and pledged to rebuild the reserve, the stockpile has grown only modestly since he took office due to limited funding approved by Congress.

According to Fortune, the reserve currently holds approximately 416 million barrels of oil.

Trump expressed confidence that energy prices will soon fall despite the market turmoil caused by the war.

“Oil prices will be coming down,” Trump told reporters at Thermo Fisher Scientific before moving on to speak in Kentucky.

“That’s just a matter of war, that happens … you can almost predict it.

“I would say it went up a little bit less than we thought and it’s going to come down more than anybody understands,” Trump said.

{Matzav.com}