This is a great guess, because it's one of the few ways that explains the lower prices but also allows Trump to both grift public resources to his friends while getting unearned positive MAGA publicity.

They've been selling that.

One of the major storage sites is dry,and this was reported a month ago.

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/12/business/cushing-oil-inventory

Is that how the reserve works though?

Here in Australia the reserve isn't a bunch of big tanks owned by the government. Its a legislative mechanism requiring fuel retailers to hold a reserve.

It wouldn't make sense for the government to own or manage a reserve because it needs to be cycled constantly (petrol deteriorates quickly, diesel too but less so), and they'd need to replicate skills from the fuel industry.

That being the case I don't think there's a big tank of fuel owned by the government.

Edit: ok it seems I'm absolutely wrong about this.

The federally-owned oil stocks are stored in huge underground salt caverns at four sites along the coastline of the Gulf of America. The sheer size of the SPR (authorized storage capacity of 714 million barrels) makes it a significant deterrent to oil import cutoffs and a key tool in foreign policy.

https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/opr/strategic-petroleum-reserve

Sorry Americans.

As an aside, I don't understand how this works because it's certainly true that fuel doesn't last forever. Maybe you can store raw unprocessed oil indefinitely but not fuel.

Socialized gas!

My theory is, some domestic fuel producer has done the math and decided that a dem majority in the mid terms will cost them more than providing this discount on fuel for the next 4 months.

Hopefully, they pay for the discount and face a dem majority after the mid terms.

You assume they aren't just straight up adding water.

They just changed the branding on existing gas stations.

I AM THE QUIETEST PERSON ON EARTH, by far the quietest, most humble, some would even say humblest person in the world, one day a big man, strong man, tears down his eyes, came begging me to build a statue of me of gold, saying mister President, you must allow it, but because I am so humble, I said, no, you must not worship golden idols, just like it says in the BIBLE, my favourite book, great book, love all the testaments, you know that the JEWS share part of the BIBLE WITH US CHRISTIANS, really cool, truly unique, no one knows that, Bibi knows that though, he’s very smart HIGH IQ just like me, I took THREE TESTS and PASSED THEM ALL, doctors said nothing like this has been seen before I AM IN SUCH GREAT WEALTH, just like the GREAT MITCH MCCONNELL, poor Mitch, old Mitch, right now lying in bed trying to fight the WOKE LIBERAL MIND VIRUS, I wish him well, all the DUMOCRATS (dumb+ Democrats) DIDN’T, those DOGS which THEY ARE EATING are LIARS AND BAD PEOPLE.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER

I dunno, sounds like a bunch of lies tbh. Like, he isn't quiet, but how much of what he's saying is coherent, let alone how much of what he's been told is true?

I do they they're throwing more ethanol in. My gas milage is down.

We tried to stop him, but she had a vagina and a funny laugh.

This. Hè found a way to help Putin

No we don't. We call it authoritarian corruption and price fixing.

Relative to other nations besides ones in the Middle East it is.

More than a half-dozen fuel industry analysts and officials, including some who work with retailers in the two states, told POLITICO they had no idea who was behind the effort and were baffled at how the retailer could survive offering discounts of up to 50 cents per gallon, well below market rate.

Experts in the field all seem to think it's fairly obviously not profitable.

Gas stations changed their branding overnight, the business only incorporated June 23rd, and no one can say who's behind it or who is covering these losses.

It's obviously some shady BS from the trump regime, trying to minimize the impact of their fuckups in iran.