ASIAN TRADING HOURS — U.S. President Donald Trump directed the Department of Justice to investigate oil companies on Wednesday after criticizing them for not lowering gasoline prices. Crude prices extended losses during Asian trading hours on Wednesday.

International benchmark Brent crude futures for August fell 0.91% to $76.38 a barrel. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures for August dropped 0.94% to $72.52 per barrel.

Trump stated that oil companies were not reducing prices at the pump proportionally to their lower crude costs. "The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock!", Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. He added, "In other words, customers are being 'gouged.' I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I'm seeing!"

Karen Young, a senior research scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, described Trump's post as "political theater." Young said, "That's not really how gasoline prices work in the U.S." She stated, "There are state and local taxes, which are applied to the price of gas at stations in the United States." Young added, "It really is up to refiners, and it takes a couple of weeks before crude prices drop, that then the prices at refineries, and then on to eventually consumers, can really respond."