President Trump has been touting a murky new venture called the “Freedom Fuel Network” to buttress his claims that Americans are seeing relief at the pump.

But new questions about the cheap gas venture — and no transparency about who is behind it — are swirling amid a larger problem for the White House.

Global developments appear to be pushing national gas prices higher, a clear pain point for the White House, with the midterm elections now less than four months away.

“That escalated quickly,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, quipped on Friday about rising prices, noting that Ukrainian attacks on Russian oil refineries contributed to the rise, in addition to developments in the Middle East.

The US this week appears set to break an eight-week streak of gas price declines, according to De Haan. The national average for regular gasoline was $3.88 per gallon as of Friday, up from $3.82 a week ago, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). 

That comes in spite of a flurry of pronouncements from Trump that prices are falling. 

“Everything is great, the prices are coming down,” the president said this week during a NATO summit in Turkey. “The oil is coming way down … and when that comes down, it brings everything else down.”

The president has at other times taken a more aggressive tack and said that gas station operators are moving too slowly to lower prices, even threatening a Department of Justice investigation if they don’t comply.

But the Oval Office effort hasn’t had the desired effect this week, with AAA’s average prices also showing other fuels like diesel taking a marked leg up in recent days.

A murky Trump venture to lower prices in Philadelphia

Much of the White House message on gas prices has centered on what is being termed the Freedom Fuel Network of 25 gas stations in the Philadelphia area.

The official White House account touted this week a station selling regular gasoline for $3.47 a gallon (a reference to Trump as the 47th president) with a video of customers thanking Trump personally for the lower prices.

It’s a good deal — with average prices across Pennsylvania at about $3.99 per gallon— but the origin of the effort and how the station could deliver gas at that price were far from clear. Cracks in the effort quickly appeared, with photos of some stations showing prices up to $3.57 per gallon.

Data analyzed by ABC News suggested that selling gas at the $3.47 price level is likely to result in a loss, given wholesale gas prices.