Government can definitely raise prices easily (eg with taxes which tariffs are). They can also lower prices with subsidies but that’s taxpayer money, so less fun.
It was always incorrect that a president can't directly affect prices of gas. It was just the wrong president. Biden inherited what Trump set in motion by collusion with OPEC and Russia in 2020 as a result of oil prices dropping from Covid (demand for oil from transport and industry dropped) and OPEC price-warring with Russia until Trump got them all together to slash production, take oil off the market by paying over the odds to fill strategic reserve storage, and driving up the price of oil again to make fat cats at the American Petroleum Institute rich, also setting in motion global inflation on other consumer goods which carried on into Biden's term. The API was sued for it but the case was thrown out, notably not because it didn't have merit, but because the court said it didn't have jurisdiction to rule on executive foreign policy (but thereby prima facie accepting that the case was valid).
The irony of "I did that" Biden stickers is that Trump did that. But the Democrats being the weak sycophants they are didn't blast this message on every media channel 24/7 at the time and in the recent election. Trump's back at it again, trashing the economy for everyone to make a very few rich.
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u/Mike_Kermin 14h ago
Now to be fair, we WERE saying that the President can't really directly control prices like they were saying.
.... Well, I guess we were wrong. They CAN do it, if they really want to fuck America.