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(WASHINGTON) — Ten days into the U.S. war with Iran, Americans are starting to feel the economic fallout as oil and gas prices soar.
Gas prices skyrocketed to a national average of $3.47 on Monday, up nearly 50 cents from last week, according to data from AAA. Plus, oil prices on Monday surpassed $100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 before falling lower later in the day.
President Donald Trump has dismissed the higher cost, telling ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce it’s “a little glitch.”
“I think it’s fine. It’s a little glitch. We had to take this detour,” Trump told ABC’s Bruce in an interview on Sunday before going on to tout the U.S. military campaign against Tehran.
In a social media post on Sunday night, Trump argued: “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.”
Yet the cost of living remains one of the biggest issues heading into the 2026 midterms, where Trump and Republicans are seeking to maintain narrow majorities in Congress.
A poll released by NBC News on Sunday found Trump received his lowest ratings in the poll on his handling of inflation and the cost of living as 36% of registered voters approve and 62% disapprove.
On Iran, the NBC poll found a majority of registered voters (54%) disapproved of Trump’s handling of the matter.
Trump, on the 2024 campaign trail, vowed to bring gas down below $2 a gallon. During the first year of his second term, Trump routinely pointed to the drop in prices at the pump, including in his State of the Union address last month.
“Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states under my predecessor and was, quite honestly, a disaster, is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states, and in some places $1.99 a gallon,” Trump said in his speech on Feb. 24.
Now, gas prices are closing in on $3.50 a gallon and are expected to continue to keep rising the longer the Middle East conflict lasts.
Patrick De Haan, a petroleum analyst at GasBuddy, told ABC News Live that Americans are currently experiencing “sticker shock.”
“Gas stations are seeing their costs go up in real time again today, as oil markets are jumping, and that’s going to be in another round of price increases over the course of this week, prices could jump another 15 to 35 cents a gallon for gasoline over the next three days, as long as nothing changes,” De Haan said. “And it’s going to be worse for the price of diesel, which could jump 35 to 50 cents a gallon, that would put it close to nearly a $5 a gallon national average.”
Some Democrats are seizing on the price jump to criticize Trump and the administration for the handling of the war.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, has called for President Trump to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) to alleviate the financial burden for Americans.
“American families are suffering from higher prices as the effects of Trump’s reckless war become pain at the gas pump and beyond as high gas prices trickle down making everything more expensive,” Schumer said in a statement on Sunday. “They cannot afford to simply wait and hope prices come down. The President has a solution right here at home, and he should use it.”
“Trump promised a Golden Age in America. Meanwhile. Republicans are crashing the economy, gas prices are out of control and the extremists are spending billions dropping bombs in the Middle East. You deserve better,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, also a New York Democrat, wrote on X on Monday.
Trump was asked over the weekend if he would use the SPR to bring some relief, but declined to say, instead criticizing former President Joe Biden’s use of the reserve. Biden released oil from the SPR several times over the course of 2022 as prices increased due to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
“I filled it up and he brought it down to the lowest level it’s ever been. We will start at the appropriate time, which is basically a gut instinct, we will start filling up,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Saturday.
“Biden used them so that he could get some extra votes in the election,” Trump added.
Analysts previously told ABC News that the SPR is a “valuable resource” for the administration to bring some relief to Americans and assuage market fears, but likely wouldn’t be enough oil in the long term to make up for the 20 million barrels of oil currently being prevented from passing through the Strait of Hormuz every day.
Trump told Fox News’s Brian Kilmeade in an interview on Sunday night that ships holding at the Strait of Hormuz need to “show some guts” and push through the channel.
Several war-risk insurers have canceled their coverage for vessels amid the widening conflict. Trump said the U.S. government was going to provide some risk insurance and guarantees, and if necessary the U.S. Navy would escort tankers through the strait.
Like Trump, several Republicans are contending that higher gas prices will be temporary.
“The prices will come back down as soon as we get out of Iran, as soon as we finish turning them into fish food, which will be pretty soon,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy said on Fox News on Sunday.
How long the Iran war will last remains an open question. President Trump initially estimated four to five weeks for the U.S., though he later said the timeline would be whatever it takes.
On Sunday, Trump told ABC’s Bruce: “I don’t know. I never predict. All I can say is we are ahead of schedule both in terms of lethality and in terms of time.”
GasBuddy’s De Haan told ABC News Live that the longer the conflict lasts, the more time it will take to see oil and gas prices to get back to their previous levels
“Every day the situation continues, it could add another several weeks to the recovery time,” De Haan said.
ABC News’ Isabella Murray, Nicholas Kerr, Soo Youn and Max Zahn contributed to this report.
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(NEW YORK) — Gas prices in the United States topped $4 per gallon on average Tuesday, crossing the milestone for the first time in nearly four years, just weeks after the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran set off a global oil shock and spiked fuel costs.
Prices at the pump have soared more than 30% since the war began on Feb. 28., AAA data showed. Fuel costs last exceeded $4 a gallon in August 2022 following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The Middle East conflict prompted Iranian closure of the Strait of Hormuz, a maritime trading route that facilitates the transport of about one-fifth of global oil supply. The risk of a prolonged oil shortage triggered a surge in crude prices.
The U.S. is a net exporter of petroleum, meaning the country produces more oil than it consumes. But since oil prices are set on a global market, U.S. prices move in response to swings in worldwide supply and demand.
Global oil prices hovered around $104 a barrel on Tuesday, which amounted to a nearly 50% price leap from pre-war levels.
Crude oil is the main ingredient in auto fuel, accounting for more than half of the price paid at the pump, according to the federal U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), earlier this week said the current oil crisis had surpassed the combined effect of worldwide energy shocks in the 1970s.
The global economy faces a “major, major threat,” Birol said at an event in Canberra, Australia, noting that no country would be “immune to the effects of this crisis if it continues to go in this direction.”
Member nations of the IEA announced two weeks ago that they plan to release 400 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve, marking the largest oil release in the 32-nation group’s history.
The Trump administration is set to carry out the second-largest-ever delivery from the nation’s emergency reserve, which will make up nearly half of the IEA’s planned release. Trump also eased sanctions on Russian oil and suspended a key regulation of domestic oil transport. The president has also sought to restore tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz.
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