Trump administration starts to panic over rapidly rising oil costs | CNN Politics

The Trump administration has started to panic about the spiking price of oil. While senior Trump aides had anticipated some brief surge in oil prices in the first days of the war with Iran, the size and sustainability of the market reaction caught them off guard, people familiar with the internal discussions told CNN. Now, as oil prices hover near $100 a barrel just over a week into the war and US gas prices are moving sharply higher, it’s prompted a belated rush to try to reassure investors and seek ways to tamp down the impact. But the administration is confronting the limits of its power — and the reality that President Donald Trump’s decision to wage war abroad threatens to wipe out some of his key economic accomplishments at home. “It’s hard to see anything but continued upward pressure on prices,” said Neil Atkinson, a longtime energy analyst and former head of the International Energy Agency’s oil industry and markets division. “People will get hurt at the pump.” Officials spent the weekend and Monday urgently drawing up a wider array of options aimed at calming financial markets and limiting the impact of oil’s surge on US gas prices, the people familiar