WASHINGTON -- President Trump said Chevron and ExxonMobil are "making too much money" and should return some of their profits back to the public.

"When you look at one company where they made 12 times what they made the year before, they ought to give some of that back to the public," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday. "And they better cut the retail price, the consumer price."

Trump described himself as a "free enterprise guy," but said oil companies are making too much money as fuel prices soar as a result of the war in Iran. "You're surprised I'm saying it. I'll say it loud and clear. I'm not happy about it," he said of the industry's profits.

America's largest oil companies reported blockbuster quarterly profits after the Iran war caused a historic dislocation in global markets that sent energy prices soaring.

At ExxonMobil, quarterly profits more than doubled from a year earlier to their highest level since 2022, at $14.5 billion. Chevron had its highest quarterly earnings on record, at $12.1 billion.

The national average price of gasoline topped $4.55 a gallon in mid-May. Prices at the pump marched higher for much of the spring as skirmishing off and on in Iran kept the Strait of Hormuz mostly closed. The waterway is a pinchpoint in the global energy market. As much as 20% of the world's daily oil needs flowed through the strait before the war started in February.

Trump's latest attack on the oil-and-gas industry echoes former President Joe Biden's criticisms. Crude prices soared in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine and with them Big Oil's profits, prompting Biden to accuse fossil-fuel companies of war profiteering and call on Congress to pass legislation to penalize oil-and-gas companies.