Welcome to meet the press now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington.

President Trump hit the road today visiting Ohio and Kentucky to tout his economic agenda.

He's set to deliver remarks this hour, but it of course comes as the administration is trying

to contain the economic fallout from the war with Iran, with fuel prices rising and

growing concerns about safety in the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping lane that borders

Iran.

Oil prices moved higher once again today.

They're now up roughly 30% since the start of the war 12 days ago.

In hopes of easing prices, a group of more than 30 countries who are members of the

International Energy Agency, which includes the U.S., announced they will release 400 million

barrels of oil from their reserves.

It is the largest release in history.

Here's Interior Secretary Doug Bergam ahead of that announcement.

Well, certainly these are the kinds of moments that these reserves are used for

because what we have here is not a shortage of energy in the world.

We've got a transit problem,

which is temporary. And when you have a temporary transit problem that we're resolving

militarily and diplomatically, which we can resolve and will resolve, this is the perfect time

to think about releasing some of those to take some pressure off of the global price.

But again, as you've seen, President Trump's

leadership itself is helping to keep prices down all over the world right now.

It comes as transit through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway, which 20% of the world's

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