Four months ago, when natural gas was trading around $2.80, a conservative pundit triumphantly declared that Donald Trump was doing a great job. Oil and gas experts who warned that prices were likely to rise were brushed off as clueless.
Fast forward four months. Natural gas was recently trading at $4.80, and the explanation has changed. According to that same pundit, the price spike is no longer evidence of Trump-era success or market strength; it’s all Joe Biden’s fault.
The contradiction is hard to miss.
What to Know…
The sharp rise in U.S. natural gas prices is primarily driven by a significant increase in LNG exports since early 2025, which has tightened domestic supply.
Claims that pipeline restrictions caused nationwide price increases are misleading; pipelines successfully moved gas to export terminals, enabling the export surge.
Political punditry often shifts blame opportunistically, but market fundamentals, not partisan narratives, explain the current price spike.
When prices were low, Trump deserved the credit. When prices rose, Biden took the blame, even though he isn’t the President, and the market forces driving the increase are not only well-documented but largely predictable.
The Convenient Amnesia of Pundit Economics
In August, low prices were proof of competence. In December, higher prices became proof of sabotage. No new theory of supply and demand was offered, just a rhetorical pivot.
One of the favored explanations now being floated is pipeline restrictions. This claim collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Pipeline constraints can create regional bottlenecks, temporarily raising prices in specific areas. What they do not do is cause nationwide price spikes across every major U.S. market.
That’s not how the natural gas system works.
The Real Driver: A Massive Increase in Exports
What has changed dramatically since the beginning of 2025 is U.S. natural gas exports.
Since Trump took office, the United States has added roughly 4 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) of additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. That is an enormous volume, which has reshaped domestic supply-demand balances.
To put it in perspective, that’s 4 billion cubic feet of gas that used to be available to U.S. power plants, manufacturers, and households. That gas is now being cooled, liquefied, and shipped overseas to higher-paying global markets, resulting in export-driven tightening of domestic supply, which pushes prices up nationwide.
This isn’t speculation. It’s basic energy economics.
Pipelines Aren’t the Problem, They’re the Enabler
Ironically, the pipeline argument actually undermines itself. If pipelines were so constrained, those extra 4 billion cubic feet of gas wouldn’t be reaching LNG export terminals every single day. The fact that exports surged proves the infrastructure was more than sufficient to move gas out of the domestic market.
The system worked exactly as designed.
Gas flowed efficiently to export terminals, exports increased, domestic supply tightened, and prices rose.
Blaming pipelines for this outcome is like blaming highways for traffic after a new car dealership opens.
Markets Don’t Care About Talking Points
Natural gas prices aren’t rising because of a secret regulatory conspiracy or a sudden policy shift by a president who isn’t in office. They’re rising because the U.S. has aggressively expanded exports, tying domestic prices more closely to volatile global markets.
That reality doesn’t fit neatly into cable-news soundbites, but it does explain why low prices were never guaranteed to last. Export growth was always going to pressure domestic supply, so the price spike was foreseeable, which is why market experts warned about price increases months ago.
When punditry replaces expertise, facts become optional. But markets don’t operate on vibes, loyalty, or partisan spin. They operate on supply, demand, and physics, whether conservative political pundits like it or not.