By Katharine Jackson and Curtis Williams
WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) - Trump administration officials on Sunday defended a decision to temporarily lift some sanctions on Russian oil and predicted that a sharp increase in gasoline prices resulting from the Iran war would last only weeks.
Appearing on multiple TV talk shows, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz said a waiver issued last week to allow Indian purchases of Russian oil would alleviate pressure
on the global market.
"It's a 30-day pause to allow, which is just kind of common sense, to allow the millions and millions of barrels of oil that are sitting out on ships to go to Indian refineries," Waltz said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Wright told CNN's "State of the Union" that the waiver can help "tamp this fear of shortage of oil, tamp the price spikes and the concerns we see in the marketplace."
With the war now in its second week and no end in sight, Americans are grappling with higher prices at the pump, a new complicating factor for the U.S. economy, which unexpectedly lost 92,000 jobs in February.
As of Friday, the national average price for regular gasoline stood at $3.32 a gallon, up 11% from the previous week and the highest since September 2024, according to data from the motorists group AAA. Diesel was at $4.33, up 15% from a week ago, surging to the highest level since November 2023.
"We believe this is a small price to pay to get to a world where energy prices are returned back to where they were," Wright said on the "Fox News Sunday" program.
There is no shortage of oil or natural gas, said Wright, who asserted that the price increases are based on "fear and perception" that the Iran operation will be a drawn-out affair.
"But it won't be," Wright said, echoing President Donald Trump's prediction that the war will last weeks rather than months.
Trump, in a Reuters interview on Thursday, predicted that gasoline prices will "drop very rapidly" when the war is over.
Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, criticized energy speculators.
"The oil prices have gone up because you've got a bunch of oil traders out there in their Gucci loafers, with their caramel Frappuccinos who are bidding up the price," Kennedy said on "Fox News Sunday."
Political analysts say a persistent rise in gasoline prices could hurt Republicans in the November midterm elections when control of the U.S. Congress will be at stake. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month found that most respondents rejected Trump's characterization of the economy as "booming."
(Reporting by Katharine Jackson in Washington, Curtis Williams in Houston and Diana Jones in Chicago; Writing by Steve Holland; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
