President Donald Trump’s claims about gas prices weren’t true when he made them during his State of the Union address last week. Now those claims are aging like milk.
The fallout from his strikes on Iran over the weekend appears to have disrupted the global energy market ― and Americans are already paying for it at the gas pump, trackers show.
Fuel market expert Patrick De Haan, who runs the gas price tracker Gas Buddy and posts real-time fuel cost updates on social media, noted that gas prices began “ramping up” on Monday and surpassed a national average of $3 a gallon. That’s the first time since December that the national average has been that high, he said on X.
Fuel prices are displayed on a gas pump Tuesday in Franklin, Tennessee. via Associated Press
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On Tuesday, he observed, gas prices saw their biggest single-day rise since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. Following that rise, he predicted average prices would reach up to $3.35 a gallon if trends hold steady.
A survey by AAA found similar prices at gas pumps this week.
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Even before this sudden uptick, gas prices weren’t as low as Trump claimed. While he touted during his national address that they were “now below $2.30 a gallon in most states and in some places $1.99 a gallon,” Oklahoma was the only state offering gas at $2.30 a gallon, a Guardian fact check found.
The day Trump made those claims, national average gas prices stood around $2.95.
But Trump’s strikes on Iran over the weekend, carried out in coordination with Israel and prompting reciprocal attacks across the Middle East, have thrown even more cold water on his claims. The strikes have damaged the region’s massive energy infrastructure and brought oil and gas tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the only connection point from the Persian Gulf to the open ocean, to a standstill. Analysts at the Netherlands’ Rabobank said Tuesday they anticipate hits to shipping in the area could last up to three months.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday there might be “a little high oil prices for a little while.” picture alliance via Getty Images
The attacks have triggered a spike in oil prices, with the cost of Brent crude, the international standard, jumping over $80 a barrel on Tuesday, up from around $70 less than a week ago.
Trump downplayed the rising oil prices.
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“We have a little high oil prices for a little while — but as soon as this ends, those prices are going to drop, I believe, lower than even before,” he claimed.
The increasingly widening conflict, which Trump said Tuesday he expects could last at least a month, has also spooked the stock market. While major tech stocks helped the market bounce back by close on Monday, it remains to be seen if a comeback is possible Tuesday given Trump’s comments.
“I do think the possibility of a more prolonged mission can weigh on markets for the next several weeks,” Jeffrey O’Connor, U.S. head of equity market structure at Liquidnet, told CNBC on Tuesday.
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