However, on Monday, White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that Joe Biden intends to run for re-election in 2024

“He is. That’s his intention,” Ms Psaki said as Mr Biden flew aboard Air Force One for a Thanksgiving event with US troops in Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

Mr Biden’s political prospects appeared to have been buoyed last week by congressional passage of a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. Still being debated is another $2 trillion in spending on a social safety net package.

But Democrats have been rattled by Republican victories in Virginia’s state elections earlier this month and a narrow Democratic victory in New Jersey.

Questions have also arisen about the prospects of Vice President Kamala Harris winning at the ballot box in 2024 should Mr Biden decide not to run again. A recent USA Today/Suffolk University poll found she had a 28 per cent job approval rating.

In a letter addressed to Mr Biden last week, Senate Democrats asked the White House to make use of the petroleum reserve, warning the seven-year high in gas prices had “placed an undue burden on families and small businesses trying to make ends meet”.

The prospect of a coordinated release by the world’s largest oil-consuming nations has knocked the wind out of crude oil’s rally. Brent crude was lately trading at $79.30 a barrel, down more than $7 from a peak reached in late October.

Donald Trump, the former Republican president, instantly slammed Mr Biden’s plan.

“Those reserves are meant to be used for serious emergencies, like war, and nothing else,” he said in a statement on Tuesday. “Now I understand that Joe Biden will be announcing an “attack” on the newly brimming Strategic Oil Reserves so that he could get the close to record-setting high oil prices artificially lowered.”

“Is this any way to run a Country?”