President Joe Biden's tweet about blaming oil companies for record-high gas prices may have rankled some Americans on social media, but one prominent media member from China endorsed the message.
At precisely noon EST on Saturday, Biden tweeted out, "My message to the companies running gas stations and setting prices at the pump is simple: This is a time of war and global peril. Bring down the price you are charging at the pump to reflect the cost you're paying for the product. And do it now."
And exactly 5 1/2 hours later, Chen Weihua, a columnist/bureau chief for China Daily EU, replied, "Now U.S. President finally realized that capitalism is all about exploitation. He didn't believe this before."
It's hard to say if President Biden was denouncing capitalism in his tweet, but that's apparently how Weihua interpreted it; and that's most likely how Ric Grenell, the one-time acting Director of National Intelligence for former President Donald Trump, viewed the tweet.
Early Sunday morning, Grenell posted a screenshot of the Biden/Weihua tweets together, before tweeting, "WARNING: The President of the United States attacks capitalism, the Chinese celebrate. (And the D.C. media do, too)."
According to World Atlas, China operates as a socialist market economy, which is characterized by state-owned enterprises and public ownership within a market economy.
China also ranks second (behind the United States) in world economy, in terms of nominal gross domestic product, with an estimated nominal GDP of $16.86 trillion in 2021.
Biden's Saturday tweet comes shortly after he told reporters that gas prices would remain high for "as long as it takes," a reference to helping Ukraine win its war against Russia.
That comment led to National Economic Council Director Brian Deese telling CNN that high gas prices were a necessary sacrifice for defending "the liberal world order."
Here's a timeline of gas prices in America over the last 18 months:
Right now, according to AAA, regular gasoline has an average price of $4.81.
On Feb. 24, the first day of Russia invading Ukraine, the U.S. average for gas was $3.54.
And back in January 2021, the final month of former President Trump's tenure in the White House, the average price of gas was $2.41 per gallon — with some states even reporting gas at less than $2 per gallon.
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