Trump’s war in Iran hits the US economy and worsens its political crisis in an election year

It was not difficult to imagine: dropping bombs in the Middle East always has the side effect of higher oil prices. And, therefore, of industrial processes, the shopping basket and, also, of the gasoline that American citizens put in their gigantic cars. And, in this case, if the one that receives the bombings is a country, Iran, with the capacity to block one of the key oil tanker passages – the Strait of Hormuz – it was going to be a matter of hours before the rise in prices would begin to be noticed at all gas stations in the US.

And that is already happening: the US president who wants to present himself to the citizens as the person most concerned about the costs of living is making, between tariffs and war, the daily lives of his voters increasingly expensive.

Thus, gasoline prices in the US have risen again this Friday: the price per gallon – 3.78 liters – has increased by 34 cents – 11% – since the start of the war against Iran a week ago. Indeed, the average price of unleaded gasoline reached $3.32 per gallon on Friday, the highest since September 2024, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA).

The increase in costs represents a serious political problem for Donald Trump, who has frequently boasted about the drop in gasoline prices during his second term with exaggerations to the point of claiming that in many states it was below two dollars a gallon, which is false. Additionally, after this week’s increases, prices are now higher than when the mandate began.

In an interview with Reuters on Thursday, Trump suggested that attacks on Iran were his priority and that he was willing to take on higher energy prices: “They’re going to go down very quickly when this is over, and if they go up, they go up; but it’s much more important that gas prices go up a little bit.”

At an event with Inter Miami at the White House, Trump joked about Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s concerns about the economic consequences of the war: “Yesterday my Administration announced measures to help keep oil prices low, including insurance for oil tankers transiting the Gulf, a fairly dangerous territory. New measures are on the way to reduce pressure on oil. We had it very low, but I had to make this small detour. [en alusión al ataque ilegal contra Irán]. Scott said to me, ‘Do you have to do it now?’ And I said, ‘I have to do it, Scott, of course.’ Everyone, including Scott, believes we really had no choice. They were going to attack us if we didn’t attack them, because they are crazy. And, in the long term, the measures taken will increase the stability of the region, of oil prices, stock markets and everything else. “We have a great country.”

Meanwhile, domestic crude oil futures have risen about 30% since the war began on February 28, a rise that oil refiners have passed on to consumers at the pump or to businesses in the form of rising diesel costs: Rising energy prices affect everything from the cost of a plane ticket to heating homes.

Furthermore, a third of the world’s fertilizers pass through the Strait of Hormuz. Fertilizer prices, already at their highest levels in decades, have continued to rise over the past week, coming at a bad time for U.S. farmers preparing for the spring planting season.

Matt Duss, former foreign policy advisor to Bernie Sanders between 2017 and 2022 and current vice president and researcher at the Center for International Policy, reflects in elDiario.es on the impact of the war on the Trump presidency, Javier Biosca reports: “I think it’s already going badly. I think it’s already a catastrophe. It’s already unpopular. No one doubted that the US and Israel had the capacity to destroy many things. That’s not impressive. The question Americans ask themselves is: does this make me safer? Does this give my son a better future? Does it give me a raise in my salary? No. It’s just spending and wasting taxpayers’ money. Plus, it’s a total breach of Trump’s election promise to be a pro-peace president. Now He has started an illegal and unnecessary war of regime change, which is exactly what he warned against. We already see opposition from within the MAGA movement. People like Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon… There is a hard core of die-hard Trump supporters who will always follow him, no matter what he says, but I think there are more independent voters who are attracted to Trump’s anti-establishment message and who are wondering, ‘This is not what I voted for.’

Trump turns to Russia and Venezuela

Concern about the impact of the rise in oil prices on the pockets of Americans in the middle of an election year, with the midterm legislative elections next November, is leading the Trump Administration to accelerate its extractive plans in Venezuela, while at the same time it has decided to relax sanctions on Russian oil in the hope that this will contribute to curbing inflation.

Thus, the US has decided to temporarily eliminate sanctions on Russian oil sales to India. The 30-day temporary waiver to allow Indian refiners to buy Russian oil represents a major shift in Washington’s Russia policy. India imports about 90% of its crude supply and became the largest buyer of Russian oil after the invasion of Ukraine. An oil that its refineries have also resold in other markets, such as Europe, providing indirect financing for Russia that circumvented direct sanctions.

Washington imposed a 50% tariff on Indian imports, claiming that India’s oil purchases helped finance Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The decision has been announced by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in

According to one This week’s NBC News pollmost voters disapprove of the way Trump is handling the situation in Iran and believe the US should not have attacked the country. The survey shows rejection of the military action launched by a president who campaigned against “endless wars.”

Although support for the White House is fractured between Democrats and Republicans, a small but notable part of the latter is dissatisfied with the decision to start a war in the Middle East.

Thus, 54% of voters disapprove of Trump’s management regarding Iran, compared to 41% who approve and 5% who say they have no opinion or are not sure. A similar percentage, 52%, say the US should not have taken military action, while 41% say it should have and 7% say they are not sure.

“MAGA is Donald Trump,” the US president claimed this week. And it did so because important figures in its ranks, such as former Fox presenter Tucker Carlson, former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene or commentator Megyn Kelly, have been totally against the war in Iran.

“It’s Israel’s war. It’s not America’s war,” Carlson said: “That’s why we’re seeing this maddened, hysterical, effort, in fact, to purge anyone from the conservative or MAGA movement, whatever it may be, who has any doubts about the wisdom of this war”:

And ultra analyst Megyn Kelly pointed out: “Being conservative, a Trump supporter, or being part of the MAGA movement does not mean you have to accept another war in the Middle East.”

“This is not America first, it is America last,” said Taylor Greene, for her part: “We are seeing what is happening to the man I supported, the one you supported, the man who denounced what happened in Iraq.”

Dave Smith, comedian and podcaster who supported Trump in 2024, has also expressed himself with a lot of opposition: “Donald Trump has asked for it. And we can already see how this will affect the Republicans in the midterm elections this year and even in the presidential elections of 2028. I hope that the Republicans lose the midterm elections this year. It is necessary for the country. They must be destroyed, and no member of this Administration can be supported in 2028, fuck JD, Vance, Marco Rubio and Tulsi Gabbard.”

Gun problems

The speed with which the US is spending weapons and ammunition in Iran has raised concerns about stockpiles in the US and among Gulf allies.

As a consequence of this, Trump held a meeting this Friday with the main weapons manufacturers at the White House. And it has announced an agreement to quadruple production of “exquisite class weaponry.”

“We have just concluded a very positive meeting with the largest US defense material manufacturing companies, in which we talked about production and production schedules,” Trump said in Truth Social.

According to Trump, “they have agreed to quadruple the production of ‘exquisite class’ weapons, as we want to reach, as soon as possible, the highest levels of quantity. The expansion began three months before the meeting, and the plants and production of many of these weapons are already underway. We have a practically unlimited supply of medium and medium-high grade ammunition, which we are using, for example, in Iran and which have recently been used in Venezuela.”

“The companies represented [en la reunión] They were the CEOs of BAE Systems, Boeing, Honeywell Aerospace, L3Harris Missile Solutions, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon.”

According to Trump, there will be another similar meeting within two months.