WASHINGTON, June 24. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump expressed dissatisfaction that gasoline prices in the country are not declining significantly and instructed the Justice Department to launch an investigation.

"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! 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," he wrote on Truth Social.

Earlier, Trump said that about 19 mln barrels of oil had passed through the Strait of Hormuz on June 22. He noted that oil prices were declining.

The average price of gasoline in the United States stood at $2.98 per gallon (3.79 liters) before the start of hostilities against Iran, and had climbed to about $3.90 by June 22.

Patrick De Haan, oil analyst at GasBuddy, a website that tracks fuel prices, told CBS News that prices will not return to their previous levels until at least the middle or end of next year, and that most of the oil moving through the strait after its reopening will be used to meet demand rather than replenish inventories. Meanwhile, Richard Joswick, expert at S&P Global Energy, believes that any sharp decline in oil prices following a US-Iran agreement will not immediately affect gasoline prices because rebuilding inventories will take time.