President Donald Trump is leaning hard on major U.S. companies to cut consumer prices, recently warning gasoline retailers of "big problems" if they didn’t reduce the price of gasoline commensurate with the price of crude, while crediting Walmart for the company's patriotism and its summer rollback of thousands of prices, as inflation sits at a three-year high and Republicans brace for a difficult midterm.

The requests have intensified as annual inflation climbed to 4.2% in May, the sharpest 12-month reading since April 2023, driven mostly by an energy shock tied to the U.S. war against Iran.

Gasoline prices alone were up 40.5% year over year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In a June 30 Truth Social post, Trump ordered gasoline retailers to bring their prices down "IMMEDIATELY," told them to "start targeting around the $2.50 a Gallon number," and warned that "big problems lie ahead" if they didn’t reduce the price of gasoline commensurate with the price of crude oil.

AAA had national regular gasoline near $3.81 that week.

A week later, Trump posted that Walmart was slashing prices "at my Administration's request to celebrate our great Country's 250th birthday," singling out an "almost 15%" cut on ground beef and calling on rivals to "follow the lead of these absolute Patriots."

Walmart's own July 6 announcement rolled back prices across groceries, household goods, and summer items, but did not indicate the White House was the inspiration behind the price reductions.

Critics told the FT the market interventions mark a sharp break for a Republican administration.

Paasha Mahdavi, a UC Santa Barbara political scientist, called it "a crazy turn for a conservative government," saying Trump was borrowing from a "socialist, hyper-populist playbook."

Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute told the paper the moves had "a flailing-about quality" and reflected "how much trouble the president is in because everything is so expensive."

Ryan Bourne of the Cato Institute warned of "a general corruption of market economics" from using the bully pulpit to pressure firms to cut prices.

A White House official pushed back, telling the FT the strategy is about lifting supply to bring costs down and that "the actual substance beyond the rhetoric is unambiguously free market. There's no gun being held to anyone's head."

The politics are tightening.

A Financial Times/Focaldata poll of 1,795 registered voters, conducted online June 26-30 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points, found 58% said the Iran war had not been worth the cost, and Trump's overall job approval sat at 36%, down two points from a month earlier.

Subgroup margins are wider.

Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates the conflict has added hundreds of dollars to the average household's fuel bill since fighting began Feb. 28.

Some administration efforts have moved prices.

Egg prices tumbled from record highs after a push to contain avian flu, and the White House has negotiated drug price cuts under its Trump Rx program.

But with the midterms four months away, Democrats are branding the price surge "Trumpflation" and blaming it on the president's tariff regime and the war in Iran.