Donald Trump Defends Soaring Costs As He Claims To 'Love' New Inflation Figures

Donald Trump on Wednesday insisted he 'loves' the latest US inflation figures as he defended soaring costs in the Oval Office, saying the surging prices, including at the petrol pump, are a consequence of his war with Iran and his handling of American oil reserves.

The remarks came after the US Labour Department reported that its Consumer Price Index was up 4.2 per cent in May compared with a year earlier. It was the first time inflation had hit 4 per cent since 2023, the steepest annual jump in three years and an uncomfortable headline number for any president heading into an election season. The spike has been felt most sharply in fuel, with gas prices up 40 per cent since the US went to war with Iran on 28 February.

Donald Trump Claims Inflation Is A Price Worth Paying

Pressed in Washington about whether the latest data worried him, Donald Trump on 10 June 2026 did not sound remotely chastened. Instead, he leaned in.

'No, I love it. The numbers were great,' the 79-year-old president told reporters gathered in the Oval Office. 'You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why?' he continued, before linking the cost of living to his foreign policy.

Trump claimed that once the conflict with Iran ends, prices will reverse course dramatically. 'When the war's over, it's coming down. It's going to come down like a rock,' he said, presenting inflation as a temporary side effect of a necessary show of strength abroad rather than a failure of economic management.

The President then unveiled what he cast as a behind-the-scenes operation in one of the world's most volatile shipping lanes. He said the US had been 'taking out millions of barrels of oil' through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway off Iran that is crucial for global energy supplies.

'Do you know we've been taking out millions of barrels of oil? Nobody knows it. You know who doesn't know? Iran until right now,' Trump told reporters, suggesting the covert effort had helped prevent oil prices from surging even higher during the conflict. None of those operational claims has been independently verified, and there has been no official Pentagon briefing to corroborate his description.

Still, the basic picture is clear enough. The US has been at war with Iran since late February, and, since then, motorists have watched prices jump by around 40 per cent. Trump's argument is that without his administration's moves in the Strait of Hormuz, the increase would have been even more painful.

Donald Trump Bristles At Questions Over His Economic Record

The president's bullish tone on Wednesday was in sharp contrast to his mood just weeks earlier, when a similar line of questioning had struck a nerve.

Last month, Trump was asked about inflation as he walked out to Marine One. A journalist put to him the accusation that his own economic policies were fuelling the surge in prices. Trump, who often treats such challenges as personal slights, was visibly irritated.

'[My policies] have been working incredibly,' he snapped, before abruptly shifting from domestic economics to nuclear diplomacy. He went on to reprimand the reporter over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

'If you want them to have a nuclear weapon, then you're a stupid person... I mean, I know you very well,' he said. It was a telling pivot. When pressed on household costs, Trump steered the conversation back to national security, essentially arguing that inflation is the lesser evil compared with a nuclear-armed adversary.

The White House's public line has not always matched the lived experience of Americans at the pump, either. In April, press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked directly about rising gas prices and flatly rejected the premise that they were high.

'Thank goodness we have a president in an administration that believes in American energy dominance in bringing down prices at the pump,' the 28-year-old spokeswoman told the press room. She urged sceptical reporters to 'look at how gas prices decreased over the past year since this president was in office', calling the situation a 'stark contrast' to Joe Biden's time in the White House.

The difficulty for the administration is that both things can be technically true at once. Prices may well have been lower at points over the past year than they were under Biden, but the latest inflation print and the reported 40 per cent jump in gas since the Iran conflict began are hard to wish away. Trump's insistence that he 'loves' those numbers, even if meant as bravado, will not make them any easier to swallow for voters who are filling up their cars more often than they are watching Oval Office news conferences.

There is, for now, no independent confirmation of Trump's claimed secret oil operations, and his rosy promise that inflation will 'come down like a rock' once the war is over remains an assertion rather than a forecast rooted in public data. Until more details emerge from official channels, his explanation for why Americans are paying more for everyday goods will rest largely on trust, and that has always been the riskiest currency in politics.