The war always comes home, and the effects of Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran are already being felt by Americans in the form of skyrocketing gas prices, which could lead to inflation and pile more economic pressure on everyday Americans. While the nation is quite literally paying the price for the president’s war, he would like everyone to please stop complaining.
“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday afternoon. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
A few days earlier, Trump dismissed the idea that prices were getting steep in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. “I asked about rising gas prices, and he said, ‘That’s all right. It will be short term. It will go way down really quickly,’” Bash recounted. When she told Trump prices were high now, she says he replied: “No, they’re not. They’re up a little bit, not much, but it will drop to record lows.”
Prices are indeed up a lot. On Monday morning, global oil prices spiked to more than $110 a barrel — the largest surge since the Covid-19 pandemic. Nationally, the price of a gallon of gas is up to an average of $3.48 — a hefty upswing from the $1.99 Trump touted, dubiously, during his State of the Union address just a few weeks ago. The spike in gas prices — caused primarily by the Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — is threatening to spill over into virtually every industry as increased transportation costs may result in higher prices for consumer goods, and a resurgence of inflation.
When Bash asked Trump if he was going to figure out the Strait of Hormuz, Trump claimed, according to Bash, that “it’s already figured out” and that Iran’s navy had been “knocked out.”
Republicans and figures in Trump’s administration similarly have been trying to assure Americans that everything will be all right.
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) backed the president in a Monday appearance on CNBC’s Squawk Box. “There are going to be some temporary effects on our domestic economy,” Emmer said. “But as soon as this is taken care of, those prices will tumble and people will recognize that this was a short-term cost to pay for a major long-term gain in terms of peace and security.”
Trump’s energy secretary, Chris Wright, predicted prices would be back down to normal within a month in an interview with CNN on Sunday. “You never know exactly the time frame of this, but in the worst case this is a weeks, not months, thing,” he said after Jake Tapper asked him about the historic spikes in oil prices and Trump telling Reuters “if they rise, they rise,” regarding gas prices.
The central problem with Trump’s confidence that the conflict driving this instability will be a short-term problem is that he himself cannot establish a clear end point to the offensive against Iran. What was initially sold to the public as a series of strikes has over the course of a few days evolved into a war of escalation the president refuses to pull back on unless he secures the “unconditional surrender” of Iran. If anything, the conflict seems on the precipice of escalating into full-blown regional warfare, with the Trump administration keeping open the possibility of deploying American troops to Iran.
But even as Trump attempts to project confidence, the anxiety over high prices is creeping in. Enough so that he’s suggesting potential nonmilitary courses of action. According to Fox & Friends host Brian Kilmeade, Trump is encouraging oil-tanker captains to “show some guts” and power through the danger.
“Here is exactly what he said: ‘These ships should go through the Strait of Hormuz and show some guts, there’s nothing to be afraid of. [The Iranians] have no navy, we sunk all their ships,’” Kilmeade recalled.
But this isn’t a game of Battleship, and no one is eager to face the possibility of a flaming shipwrecked death to help keep the price of oil down in the United States.
