'Overseas' doing worse with petrol prices than USA: Trump's vice president
In a speech that would offer little comfort to Australians, US Vice President JD Vance has told an audience other countries were "suffering" on petrol prices worse than America.
Petrol prices have shot up worldwide in the wake of the US war on Iran. Here in Australia, the average cost of unleaded petrol is now $2.29/litre and diesel up to $2.71/litre.
But things are worse "overseas", Vance said at a rally in Detroit.
READ MORE: Trump berates allies as he finds himself alone on Iran war
Vice President JD Vance has said overseas countries are doing worse on petrol prices than the US. AP
"So as much as we've got to focus on getting these gas prices down, the reality is, overseas they're feeling it far worse than we did because we've taken the steps to protect our energy economy."
Vance appeared to blame US allies for not focusing enough on securing fossil fuels.
"We actually worked with a lot of our allies all over the world who are suffering from this frankly more than we are because unlike the United States where we pursued an energy dominance agenda," he said.
"You've got a lot of people all over the world who have focused on a lot of green energy scams and they're hurting a lot more than we are."
Vance spoke of "working with allies" to release hundreds of millions of barrels out of petroleum reserves to put downward pressure on prices.
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JD Vance touting the economy at an event in Michigan. AP
Australia was one such country to release petrol from its reserves, though it has not appeared to bring prices down.
In the US, a litre of petrol costs about A$1.44. That's about 80 cents cheaper than average prices at the bowser in Australia.
As a net oil exporter, the US has not seen panic buying at petrol stations like in Australia.
But Americans are still feeling the pinch after seeing petrol prices surge.
In his speech, Vance pointed to high prices under the Biden administration.
"(Petrol prices are) not even as high as they were during certain parts of the Biden administration because of what's going on in the Middle East," he said.
"It's not going to last forever."
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Long queues for petrol at a Sydney service station. Peter Rae
Yesterday Donald Trump's top economic advisor said The pain felt by consumers as a result of the war with Iran is "the last of our concerns".
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC that the war with Iran "wouldn't really disrupt the US economy very much at all".
"It would hurt consumers and we'd have to think about if that continued what we would have to do about that," Hassett said.
"But that's the like, really the last of our concerns right now because we're very confident that this thing is going ahead of schedule."
US inflation data released overnight was twice the anticipated figure.
Petrol prices are anticipated to rise further with a substantial jump in oil prices today.
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