Trump's shady "art of the deal" with Big Oil.

Getty Images CARSON, CALIFORNIA – APRIL 02: In an aerial view, the Marathon Petroleum Corp’s Los Angeles Refinery is seen on April 02, 2026 in Carson, California. Oil prices surged over 10 percent in volatile trading, with both Brent and U. S. crude jumping sharply after President Donald Trump warned of intensified military action against Iran and signaled the conflict could drag on, raising fears of prolonged supply disruptions. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) The American people have seen several big oil scandals over the last century. We have survived Teapot Dome, the collapse of Enron, windfall profiteering during the 1970s oil crisis, Exxon Valdez, Deepwater Horizon and more. But President Trump’s deal with Big Oil is the most corrupt in our history. Its cost pervades everything from household budgets to public health, national security, the climate, and the future. During his first term and now in his second, Trump has delivered hundreds of billions of dollars in favors to the industry, including tax breaks and subsidies, access to more federal land and waters, a major rollback of environmental regulations, the suppression of competition from clean energy technologies, access to Venezuela’s oil reserves, and of course the very profitable Iran war. No one has stopped him. This arrangement is clearly unethical, if not illegal. That became obvious in April 2024 when candidate Trump offered the oil industry a deal, telling its executives that if they gave $1 billion to his campaign, he would deliver their wish list when he recaptured the White House. He has been delivering ever since. The deal betrays the middle- and lower-income voters who helped elect him. By cutting important social programs and safety nets to pay for the oil industry’s tax breaks and subsidies and by raising consumer prices, Trump’s energy policies are transferring wealth from American families to one of the world’s most powerful industries. Oil companies ended up providing nearly $100 million to Trump’s campaign organization and affiliated political action committees, not counting dark-money contributions. They also gave nearly $12 million to Trump’s inauguration and have continued contributing millions more to Trump’s PAC since he took office. Trump, meanwhile, has continued making promises. Last July, his One Big Beautiful Bill Act gave oil and gas companies more than $30 million in windfall profits every hour during the war’s first month. If oil prices remain elevated, they are expected to rake in $234 billion in extra profits by the end of this year. Political candidates always make promises, but Trump’s seemed to involve a clear quid pro quo. Trump solicited the $1 billion one month after he became the Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee. Trump’s April 2024 deal with oil executives seemed illegal on its face. It is a felony to solicit or receive anything of value after one is officially informed that he or she will be nominated for public office. But what is unethical may not be illegal under the U. S. Supreme Court’s campaign finance jurisprudence. As a law expert explained, “Unless Trump wrote on a napkin during the meeting an exact amount of money he wanted deposited in a specific campaign vehicle in exchange for a specific policy goal, there’s little chance it would violate bribery laws as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court.” What is indisputable is that Trump’s relationship with the carbon cartel is like an oil spill spreading through the environment, the economy, consumer prices, the tax burden, and the future. It will take an entirely new Congress to stop the spill and begin the cleanup. William S. Becker is a former U. S. Department of Energy central regional director who administered energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies programs. He also served as special assistant to the department’s assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy. Becker is executive director of the Presidential Climate Action Project. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.