Are prices really falling in the US, as Trump has said? | | Donald Trump News

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, has taken to social media to boast about the economic situation between the peace agreement between the US and Iran, which yesterday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to end the US-Israel war on Iran.

Writing on his social media site Truth Social, the president said that “OIL IS BUYING” and added that “STOCK MARKETS ARE RISING, JOBS ARE STAYING, AND PRICES ARE LOWERING (USED!)”

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Although some of his claims are correct, others are false. Al Jazeera is looking for:

‘Stock Market Hits Record High’

This is especially true for the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The stock hit 51,999.67 at its close on Tuesday amid the possibility of a ceasefire and the recently announced SpaceX meeting.

The Dow fell sharply on Wednesday after the US Federal Reserve announced that it would keep interest rates in the range of 3.5-3.75 percent, closing Wednesday at 51,494.99. The Dow jumped 0.35 percent in midday trading Thursday at 51,671.

The Nasdaq Composite Index and the S&P 500 both fell.

However, this may not directly affect the 38 percent of Americans who do not invest in the stock market.

“The idea that the stock market is doing well doesn’t reflect what people are going through. There is a saying that the stock market is not the economy, and that’s something to remember,” Michael Klein, a professor of international economics at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Al Jazeera.

And what happened is at the gas station and the grocery store.

‘Prices are falling’

Petrol prices have started to fall in the last few days. The average price of a gallon of fuel (3.78 liters) on Thursday is $3.99, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), which tracks gas prices daily. This is down from a high of $4.48 in May, but still higher than $2.98, when prices were on February 28 when the US and Israel hit Iran for the first time.

Despite the agreement, experts believe that the drop in the price of gasoline will be greater for ordinary consumers like the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which earlier this week reached its lowest level since 1983it is refilled, all the while removing the oil and shipping containers that weigh on the supply chain.

“Persistent inflation is the biggest problem.” Transportation, recovery, insurance costs, and production costs are not at the same time, so even if oil is stable, the cost of production is high,” Tammy Kulesa, director of product marketing for supply chain execution at Blue Yonder, a supply chain management firm, told Al Jazeera.

Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University in Houston, Texas, says prices will not return to pre-war levels until the last quarter or close of 2027.

“Even if everyone believes that the deal will go through (and) there is no danger of passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the tanks will take months to get to their destination and back,” Jones told Al Jazeera. “So the ability to recover stocks takes until, I think, early fall (the third quarter).”

Consumer price inflation, which is the highest in three years at 4.2 percent, has raised prices for several essential items and burdened consumers. Although electricity prices have risen by almost eight percent in the past two months alone, prices in the market rose by 0.1 percent in May from the previous month’s increase of 0.7 percent in April, with the biggest increase in products such as bakery products, cereals, non-alcoholic beverages, and fruits and vegetables.

“There are real problems that many people are facing. Prices are high, and wages are not keeping up with prices. So people’s real purchasing power is down,” said Klein.

Supermarkets have noticed. Kroger, the largest U.S. grocery store, said Thursday it will cut prices on thousands of items at its nearly 3,000 stores nationwide. This comes amid pressure from Costco and Walmart on price shoppers.

“Customers are being intentional about their spending and in some cases, they’re buying from us indiscriminately. We’re getting more shopping trips and less than a full basket,” Kroger CEO Greg Foran said in a statement.

‘Jobs on record’

Jobs are not up to the mark, despite Trump’s claims.

The US economy added 172,000 jobs in May. The peak during Trump’s second term was 214,000, in March. By comparison, on average, 300,000 jobs were added every month under his predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, a Democrat, who has many months – including July 2021, when the economy added 943,000 jobs, although it was behind the COVID-19 pandemic when businesses rushed to hire after a major crisis.

Under Trump, there have been months of limited job growth that has focused on other sectors such as health care. On average, employers only add 15,000 jobs per month in 2025. Meanwhile, the US economy lost 92,000 jobs this year in February.

Redundancies are also at their peak. Job cuts jumped by 16 percent between April and May, indicating that more people have been out of a job since May 2020 during the pandemic, according to Challenger, Gray and Christmas, with artificial intelligence (AI) as the driving force behind the cuts. More than 97,000 people lost their jobs in May.

‘The oil is flowing’

Overnight, 12.5 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz, where about a fifth of the world’s oil is usually shipped, according to US Vice President JD Vance. However, data from Kpler shows that flow through the river is still limited, with six channels confirmed on June 17.

As the crisis began to unravel, oil prices fell to their lowest level since the early days of the war as a temporary ceasefire and sanctions relief were lifted around the world.

Brent crude futures LCOc1 were down $0.78 or 1 percent at $76.51 in afternoon trading.

Shipments of natural gas (LNG) also increased, with the QatarEnergy LNG vessel returning to Ras Laffan, carrying more than 209,000 cubic meters, according to to cpl.