Press Briefing: Kevin Hassett Speaks to Reporters Outside the White House - April 30, 2026

Well, we've taken all the steps necessary for now. You know, we've got some things left that we do, but the bottom line is that we wanted to see on the ground of the old companies were experiencing, especially the people who have ships that are in there. How are the people doing and so on. But everybody told us exactly what I just said, that once you get the screens open then the amount of oil that will come through is going to be bigger than you've ever seen. It's partly because the Saudis have 2 million barrels a day of excess capacity and they're here to make up for lost revenue, and the Emirates, you know, have had a large amount as well. And so, you know, we're looking at like about 20 million barrels a day? And I think that there's going to be even more coming out of it.

Those are ongoing negotiations with the Commerce Department and the creditors and so I can't comment on those right now.

It depends. The creditors could give them more time by helping them out if they want to hold this up.

That's not, I'm not involved in the negotiations.

Well, yes. So in fact what we've said is that we want the Inspector General at the Fed to tell us like what is the source of the cost overruns. The Inspector General at the Fed is part of the Fed so it's extremely respectful of Federal Reserve independence to have their Inspector General look into something that's a massive multi-billion dollar cost overrun. I expect that that person's probably already doing that. And so to say that we're opposed to independence of the Fed by asking the Fed's own institutional investigators to look into something that if I were running any agency in government and I saw a cost overrun like that and I were running the agency I'd have to ask my Inspector General to tell me what happened. And so I don't think that it's in any way a threat to Federal Reserve independence. So I just think that Chairman Powell and soon-to-be former Chairman Powell is indeed correct. And finally I think that this is a situation that I've known Kevin Warsh for 25 years and he's the kind of person with strong leadership skills and diplomatic skills to get this thing resolved. I'm highly confident he's going to be confirmed and that when he's confirmed he's going to go in there and he's going to find a way to work this out.

Jet fuel prices, you know, were an especially big concern at the beginning because the jet fuel on the West Coast was coming in from Asia and Asia's one of the places most affected. So we actually had say Korean refineries sending jet fuel to our West Coast refineries and it's an example how President Trump has taken every step to make sure that the impact of these higher prices and potential supply disruption are minimized to the US. So we waived the Jones Act, we got jet fuel into the West Coast of the US. And again our expectation is that everything's going to increase, that supply will increase rapidly once the straits are open and we're extremely hopeful. You know, if you look at the Iranian economy right now it's extremely on the ropes. They're having a hyperinflation, they're running out of food. It's any the leadership of any country that cares at all about its citizens should make a deal.

Well, we 100% support American shipping. We think it's really, really important that we have shipyards in the US and we want them to be healthy, healthier than they've ever been. But in order to get the fuel from the Gulf to the West Coast we had to waive the Jones Act and we found that that was incredibly effective. We think there were about 8 million barrels of refined product that went to the West Coast to help reduce the price risks over there and make sure there was jet fuel for the airports. And so that's why it was extended for 90 days because we had so much success with the program.

You know, that's something that we've asked to get a report on but I haven't got a report yet. But the point is that we're heading towards summer months and the mixtures can change, but we've taken steps to make sure that the people can keep the ethanol in the summer. I don't know what's going on but it must be a specific refinery perhaps or a disruption, but I've not had a report on that yet.