Gas Prices Are Rising—and So Are the Iran War Stakes for Trump
Cheap fuel had been a bright spot for the US economy before tankers stopped moving through the Middle East.
A gas station in Monterey Park, California, on March 3.
Photographer: Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Christopher Knittel says he flinched when he gassed up his Ford Bronco on Friday afternoon. “I was in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, and gas was $3.99 a gallon,” he says. I spoke with Knittel from the road as he made his way from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he teaches energy economics, to his family cabin in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Knittel even planned his journey with gasoline prices in mind. “I didn’t fill the tank all the way up because I’m expecting prices to be much lower in New Hampshire,” he says.
Since the US and Israel launched deadly strikes on Iran just over a week ago, the conflict has escalated, wreaking destruction and havoc all over the Middle East and blocking most oil shipments from the region. Brent crude prices have risen from about $70 a barrel to more than $100. As of 11 a.m. Monday in New York the average price of gasoline in the US is $3.46 a gallon, up about 40¢ from last week’s average, according to national price tracker GasBuddy—a jump of more than 11%.