The Liberty Daily 
(The Daily Caller)—Drivers could see some relief at the pump after American oil prices tumbled Monday as the U.S. and Iran signaled openness to peace talks.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, was down 7.8 percent at $95.96 a barrel as of Monday afternoon at 1:03 p.m. ET, CNBC market data showed. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday that President Donald Trump would rather resolve the conflict diplomatically.
Asked about possible new strikes on Iran, Rubio said Trump “hasn’t made a decision.”
“He’d prefer to solve it diplomatically,” Rubio said at a press availability at the close of the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Atlanta.
Rubio added that Trump has expressed “the incredible confidence that if we needed to do something militarily, we would have the ability to do it.”
Wholesale gasoline prices fell 18 to 24 cents a gallon Monday, petroleum analyst Tom Kloza of Kloza Advisors said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The national average could get close to $4 a gallon if those drops hold, he noted.
“However today’s action is both curious and specious and we’ve seen this movie before,” Kloza added.
The State Department did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down 8.1 percent at $104.24 a barrel at the same time, still above $100, CNBC market data showed as 1:03 p.m. ET on Monday.
Regular gasoline cost an average of $4.17 a gallon nationwide Monday, down from $4.40 a month earlier but up from $3.04 a year ago, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA).
“Crude oil prices above $100 per barrel, however, are limiting further declines at the pump,” AAA said in an Oct. 29 release.
The Energy Information Administration (EIA) does not have an estimate that isolates the conflict’s effect on U.S. gasoline and heating oil prices this year, EIA spokesperson Lee Tucker told the DCNF.
“Changes in crude oil prices do not necessarily translate into equivalent changes in retail gasoline and heating oil prices,” Tucker said, adding that the agency’s next Short-Term Energy Outlook is scheduled for Nov. 10.
“Refined products may remain lofty well after crude prices become more moderate,” Kloza said.
“Once this conflict comes to an end, gas prices will drop drastically, and the Iranian terrorist regime will not have a nuclear weapon,” White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told the DCNF.
“Protecting America’s national security from threats by a radical terrorist regime that has chanted ‘Death to America’ for 47 years was the right thing to do — and President Trump is the only President who has had the courage to do it,” Rogers said.
“Thanks to the exceptional work of the U.S. military, more oil is now flowing out of the Persian Gulf than before the Iran conflict began,” she added.
American and Israeli forces began their joint offensive on Iran Feb. 28, the Trump administration’s second use of force against the country in eight months.
Trump wrote in an Oct. 8 social media post that the U.S. “will not be attacking Iran at any time prior to the Midterm Elections to be held in the United States on November 3rd.”
The administration has warned several Gulf Arab governments to get ready for a “short, intense military campaign” once the midterms are over, according to an Oct. 27 Wall Street Journal report citing anonymous sources.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a deal with the U.S. could happen if the Trump administration “demonstrates goodwill” and is “truly seeking a peaceful solution,” CNBC reported, citing state media.
Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, called Friday for the country’s armed forces to answer “any level or type of threat” with “an immediate, impactful, and geographically unrestricted response,” according to CNBC.
Iran said Monday it has a plan to restart nuclear negotiations with the U.S. and let ships transit the Strait of Hormuz again within two days if its demands are met, the Associated Press reported.
Rubio said Friday that U.S. Central Command forces are guarding Gulf energy shipments in the Strait of Hormuz.
“Virtually every day, every other day, we shoot down a drone or a missile that’s aimed at a ship,” he said.
A White House official told the DCNF that the administration has taken several steps to ease the price spike, including a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil and refined products with International Energy Agency members, 172 million barrels of which are coming from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The official also pointed to an Oct. 5 executive order temporarily allowing off-road diesel on highways and deferring its federal excise tax, an Energy Department plan to exchange up to 315,000 barrels of heating oil from the Northeast Home Heating Oil Reserve and waivers of the Jones Act, a shipping law that limits which vessels can carry cargo between U.S. ports.
The Energy Department said Oct. 29 it had finished awarding contracts for the 172 million barrels it had committed to release from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
