Letter: Is Iran War a pay off?

Published 1:30 am Tuesday, June 9, 2026

Editor,

In April of 2024 Donald Trump hit up a bunch of oil executives at a dinner meeting at Mar-A-Lago. He said they were all wealthy enough that they should raise $1 billion to help return him to the White House.

In the USA we burn 377 million gallons of gasoline per day. At an increase of $1 per gallon that’s $377 million/day. We burn 125 million gallons of diesel per day. At an increase of $1.50 per gallon, that’s $187 million/day.

Put those two numbers together and you get $564 million dollars a day. Now, multiply that by just one month (30 days) and you get $17B as in billion dollars! That’s $17 billion (each month) taken out of the pockets of each and every American and funneled into the various pockets of those in the oil industry.

Seems like Trump is paying off his campaign debts in a grand style!

Jeff Bakeman

Freeland