US President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Justice to launch an investigation into major oil companies, accusing them of maintaining artificially high gasoline prices despite a decline in crude oil costs.
The order marks a significant escalation in the administration's approach to energy market oversight, moving beyond rhetoric to formal legal scrutiny of industry pricing practices.
The probe targets the disconnect between wholesale crude prices and retail fuel costs, a dynamic that has drawn political scrutiny in recent months.
By invoking the Justice Department, the administration is signaling that it views the pricing gap as a potential antitrust or consumer protection issue rather than a simple market fluctuation.
This introduces a new regulatory risk for integrated energy majors, which have seen their margins come under intense political pressure.
Energy markets are likely to react to the prospect of increased government intervention.