WATCH: Trump Energy Secretary Dodges When NBC’s Welker Asks if Oil is Headed for $200 a Barrel

Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, on Sunday, did not dismiss the possibility that the price of oil could reach $200 per barrel in the near future.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Kristen Welker quizzed the energy secretary about how long Americans can expect to feel pain at the pump.

“Are you confident that gas will be back under $3 a gallon by the busy summer travel season, Mr. Secretary?” Welker said.

“There’s a very good chance that’ll be true,” Wright said. “You know, there’s no guarantees in war. The timeframe’s still not entirely clear. But I think that’s certainly a goal of the administration and very possible.”

“Well, the price of a barrel of oil closed above $103 on Friday,” Welker said — following up. “And the Iranians are warning of prices hitting $200 a barrel. Mr. Secretary, should Americans be bracing for, should they be worried that this war will actually drive the price of oil above $200 a barrel?”

The secretary evaded the question.

“So Iran for 47 years has called the United States ‘the great Satan,'” Wright said. “So because they call us the great Satan, I don’t think we are the great Satan. In fact, clearly we’re not. So I don’t listen much to Iranian projections of what’s going to happen.”

“So that’s a no?” Welker interjected — pressing for a direct answer. “Is that a no?”

“I would pay no attention to what Iran says,” Wright said. “But there is a lot of energy that flows through the Strait of Hormuz. And depending upon the timing and the manner in which this conflict comes to an end, we’re going to see some elevated pricing until we get there. Where it’s going to go? We have done many, many actions to mitigate that price rise. You saw the announcement of a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil with over 30 nations of the world participating in that. We’ve had allies in the Middle East that moved oil overseas before the conflict started. Heck, we just announced yesterday bringing on a meaningful amount of oil production in the State of California from off-shore that California has fought foolishly to prevent new American oil to go into their own state. And we said, ‘Enough is enough.’ And we’ve got new oil production coming on in California. So lots of actions we’re taking to mitigate this price rise.”

Experts warn of a devastating impact on the global economy should oil prices reach the $200 threshold. A feature in The Atlantic argued that $200 oil could “plunge the world into a recession, raise borrowing costs, alter the outcome of ongoing wars, and shift the balance of global-power competition in favor of Russia and China.”

Welker proceeded to ask Wright about a Truth Social post in which President Donald Trump claimed, “when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money.”

“Mr. Secretary, previously the president had argued that consumers benefit from lower oil prices,” Welker said. “So which is it? Which is better for Americans lower oil prices or higher oil prices?”

“In general, lower oil prices,” Wright said. “This president has been committed to low gasoline prices, low diesel prices, low travel prices. He ran on that agenda. He worked on it for four years in his first administration. So he’s committed to low oil prices. Because 100% of Americans are affected by that. But he’s just making an economic point that we’re such a large producer of oil. It does bring a lot of money into the U.S. economy. It doesn’t have the same impact on us as it does the other nations of the world when oil prices go up. But he’s all about low gas prices, low diesel prices, low energy prices.”

Watch above, via NBC.

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