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Gas prices in the United States have reached their highest levels in years, as the impasse between the U.S. and Iran continues after nearly nine weeks of war.
Iran responded to the U.S.-Israeli attack by blocking most maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which nearly one-fifth of the world’s oil passes. Although President Donald Trump has claimed at various stages of the war that the strait would be reopened soon (or had already reopened), traffic through the waterway has remained severely restricted since the onset of the conflict.
On Thursday, the average cost of regular grade gasoline in the U.S. stood at $4.30 per gallon, the highest rate for that type of gasoline since July 2022.
The current cost for gas is 46.4 percent higher than where prices stood a week before the unauthorized war began, and represents a 38.3 percent increase since the start of Trump’s second term in office. Gas costs in several states are well above the national average, including in California, where prices have reportedly topped $6 per gallon, on average.
Notably, Trump campaigned in the 2024 presidential race to bring gas prices down to $2 per gallon. In the nearly year and a half since he re-entered the White House, however, U.S. gas prices have yet to reach that level.
With no signs that the Strait of Hormuz will reopen anytime soon — and with negotiations on the war stalling (in part due to Trump’s social media posts) — it’s likely that prices will continue to climb, especially as the summer months approach, a time when demand for gas in the U.S. tends to grow.
As Americans grapple with frustratingly higher gas prices, Trump has dismissed the economic fallout of the war, acknowledging last week that prices will remain high “for a little while,” but implying that the costs were worth it.
“You know what they get for that? Iran without a nuclear weapon,” Trump said to reporters last Thursday.
Military intelligence assessments at the start of the war demonstrated that Iran did not pose an imminent threat to the U.S., and nuclear experts have noted that Iran wasn’t anywhere near being able to build a nuclear bomb before the war began. Some assessments of the current situation demonstrate that the war may actually drive Iran (and other countries around the world) to pursue nuclear weapons.
Trump’s claim also contradicts his and the administration’s previous assertions regarding attacks on Iran last year, when the president said he had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Trump’s insistence that gas prices will be high for a short while is also inconsistent with his own administration’s predictions. According to a report earlier this month from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), prices will remain above pre-war levels throughout this year and into the next, with prices likely to remain above $3.46 per gallon, on average, in 2027.
However, that projection was based on the expectation that oil prices “will gradually decline as oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz resume,” which hasn’t happened yet. Trump has privately told his aides to prepare for an extended blockade of the strait, The Wall Street Journal reported this week.
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