Wright says US gas prices more likely to go down than up

 MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC “THIS WEEK” CO-ANCHOR:  Thanks, Rachel.

I'm joined now by the secretary of Energy, Chris Wright.

Good morning, Mr. Secretary.

As you know, we have renewed fighting with Iran. In fact, Iran is claiming they hit some ships overnight. President Trump has called this small potatoes, but it seems like we are still at war.

ENERGY SECRETARY CHRIS WRIGHT:  Look, it's a challenge. Iran is doing everything they can to cling on to something. They know their nuclear program's coming to an end. Their navy has come to an end. Their air force has come to an end.

They're clinging on to power as the United States continues to escalate the volume of oil that transits through the Strait of Hormuz. And when you add it together with the bypass pipelines, we're at two-thirds or so of total pre-conflict transits. And the world's had some buffers to not completely, but mostly offset that. So, things aren't looking so good for Iran.

RADDATZ:  But would you say we're still at war? They did hit -- they did launch ballistic missiles.

WRIGHT:  We're still in a conflict, for sure. The United States Navy is there to reduce Iran's ability to cause trouble, but they're doing everything they can to cause trouble. And the United States' capabilities to deflect that have continued to grow. But we're in a conflict zone.

RADDATZ:  You said that Monday we broke a wartime record with 17 million barrels a day passing through. The average before the war was 20 million barrels a day. Have we sustained that this week? What was our seven-day average?

WRIGHT:  The seven-day average right now is a little over 9 million barrels a day, which is the highest the seven-day average has ever been. So it continues to migrate up. And then there's also the bypass pipelines through Saudi Arabia, through the United Arab Emirates. And when you add those together, the flow out of that region is more like 13, 14 million barrels a day.

RADDATZ:  You also said, and just now again, that Iran is losing its ability to hold the world economic hostage. You talk about our troops being there. We have 50,000 troops being there. They are certainly escorting -- helping to escort these ships.

How long can we sustain that? Do we have to have that to maintain this?

WRIGHT:  Well, we'd love to see help from allies in the region, and I suspect we'll see some of that. But the critical mission that our Navy is doing is not just to escort the ships out, but it's to prevent any Iranian oil or any other export products from coming out. That's very important for the economic pressure in Iran that'll either change their regime or it'll change their regime's policies.

So this is a conflict, make no mistake about that. But a nuclear armed Iran is an existential threat, not just for the region, but for the world economy.

I'm very proud of President Trump, not just kicking this can down the road like previous presidents have done, but saying we've got to end that capability. We've got to reset the Middle East so it can have generations of peace and prosperity.

RADDATZ:  Well, let's talk about gas prices. Right now, the average is $4.10 a gallon. A year ago, the Labor Day average was $3.16 a gallon. Diesel prices are also soaring.

Just a few weeks ago -- you mentioned President Trump -- he dismissed the increase in gas prices as just a tiny bit.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES:  For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline, just remember, you're doing it so that a very evil country cannot have -- a country really is the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. We don't want to have them have a nuclear weapon. So remember that.

When you have to pay a little bit more, you're at $4. It's OK. I mean, it's -- I'm not -- I'm not -- I'll never apologize. I did the right thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RADDATZ:  OK. It's been more than six months of paying higher prices. And there is also no sign of a nuclear agreement. You talk about that, President Trump talks about that. But where's the sign that they're going to have a nuclear agreement?

WRIGHT:  There may not be a nuclear agreement. It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it. An agreement may await the next administration in Iran. We simply don't know that.

But I think what the president was communicating there is how critically important this is. If Iran has nuclear weapons, the Middle East, the world is a wildly different place than it is today. And the Trump administration, as you heard last year at Labor Day, incredibly low gas prices at the end of peak driving season.

Yes, they're higher today, but we're doing everything we can to push them down. We changed refinery specs recently so that American refineries can produce more gasoline and diesel. New York, Connecticut, California, and other Democratic-run states decided not to adopt those. Their goal is to raise energy prices. California's had that goal for quite some time.

RADDATZ:  Mr. Secretary, I've got to stop you there. You said we may not get a nuclear agreement. So how do we keep them from having a nuclear weapon? Just keep bombing when they build things up?

WRIGHT:  You have to destroy their capabilities to do it. They built a massive missile infrastructure to manufacture missiles, which you see them firing today, but they don't have the capability to build more missiles. We are degrading their capacity to develop nuclear weapons and ultimately to deliver them if they develop them.

It is 47-year-long effort. This is not trivial, but the United States will get the job done and we will work in cooperation with our allies in the region. And I think you'll see countries from around the world joining this effort as well.

RADDATZ:  And realistically, let's again talk about gas prices. How soon should Americans see these go down? We know you have this deal with Venezuela that could take years before we see any effect of that.

Will we see a change before the midterm? When will we see those gas prices go down?

WRIGHT:  Well, if you look at the futures prices, you wanted to buy today in bulk gasoline for two months out in November, it's about 35 cents cheaper than it is today. So the marketplace thinks gasoline prices are going to move meaningfully lower. So trust the market, certainly don't trust my predictions.

But we're doing everything we can to grow the production of gasoline as we pass Labor Day tomorrow, you start to see demand decline as we move out of summer driving season. So the Trump administration is leaning in heavily in that area.

And Venezuela, I wouldn't discount it. Things there are going well ahead of plan. Venezuelan oil exports are up 50 percent. Their total national production is up 25 percent and billions of dollars of new investment has been announced.

The Trump administration is working on all fronts from the Gulf of America to Alaska to onshore in the U.S. to our allies in the hemisphere to grow energy production in long term to reset energy prices lower and more stable supply chain.

RADDATZ:  And, Mr. Secretary, just finally, you negotiated this Venezuelan deal with Delcy Rodriguez, who was vice president under the Maduro regime, the regime that the Trump administration attacked as a socialist dictatorship. Why do you trust her?

WRIGHT:  Well, I wasn't the negotiator on the deal, but she -- we have a lot of leverage over Venezuela. We control the sale of oil outside of their country. So right now, they are forced to work in partnership with us and they are working in partnership with us.

It's drawing billions of dollars in investment and it's transforming that region from a region of conflict to a region of commerce. I think the momentum going that direction, whoever is ruling Venezuela is quite strong, very, very positive for the hemis -- for the Western Hemisphere.

RADDATZ:  Thanks very much for joining us this morning, Mr. Secretary.

https://abcnews.com/Politics/week-transcript-9-6-26-energy-secretary-chris/story?id=136225571