Why Americans May — Or May Not — Blame Biden For Higher Gas Prices

When President Biden announced last week that he was banning Russian oil imports to the United States to retaliate against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he conceded that Americans would pay more for gas as a result. “Defending freedom is going to cost,” Biden said. “It’s going to cost us as well.”

But higher prices at the pump and elsewhere aren’t new. For nearly a year now, Americans have faced sharply rising inflation, and the latest numbers were further confirmation of that reality: U.S. prices last month rose 7.9 percent year-over-year, the largest such...