Trump says the Iran war is worth the price. The bill keeps growing.

Por Scott Waldman — POLITICO – TOP Stories

The war with Iran is now more than half a year old with no signs of ending, and there’s precious little talk lately from President Donald Trump and his administration that a negotiated conclusion is imminent.

What’s left is a price tag that keeps climbing and the promise that the war’s costs will drop precipitously once America wins a war it can’t seem to end.

Speaking Wednesday at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, Trump had a new talking point: the war would end “immediately after” the midterm elections. Until then, Trump has exhorted Americans to bear higher prices at the pump to ensure Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.

“It happens to me all the time. Guys come up, “You know, I wish you didn’t do the war in Iran. Gasoline’s up,’” Trump told the crowd. “And I say, “Well, let me ask you just smart people…one question. Can Iran have a nuclear weapon? Absolutely not. Well, then I’m right.’”

Though the price of gasoline is eminently visible to the average taxpayer, it might be the smallest line on the bill that’s coming due. The war’s cost to the average American household’s pocketbook is about $1,650 as of last week, a combination of energy, interest rates and the costs of the war, according to Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytic. It’s a number he said grows by the day.

Asking Americans to swallow those costs may be a tough sell for Trump, Vice President JD Vance and others gathered in Texas to rally voters who say they increasingly feel squeezed by the cost of living. And the situation underscores the messaging challenge Trump faces with an election less than two months away.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in late August showed that just 31 percent of Americans support the war in Iran, and an overwhelming majority of those surveyed – 83 percent – think the war will continue “for an ⁠extended period of time.”

On Thursday, oil prices surged above $107 a barrel, the highest level since May. Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at the Eurasia Group with a focus on oil and gas and Iran, said that may be due in part to Trump’s recent comments.

“This is the oil market kind of recalibrating around this U.S. position that there isn’t going to be any kind of breakthrough on Iran until after the midterms,” Brew said. “The president made it pretty clear in his comments … that they really want to just keep a lid on this until after the elections.”

A White House official said Trump is committed to lowering Americans’ energy costs.

“President Trump remains committed to unleashing American energy dominance, cutting costs, and putting more money back in the pockets of hardworking American families,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement. “As the U.S. continues to maintain full control of the Strait of Hormuz, oil and gas prices will fall back to pre-conflict levels.”

But Brittany Martinez, a Republican strategist and executive director of Principles First, a conservative organization that has been critical of Trump, said selling the message that the economic pain from the Iran war is a short-term good is tough in part because it’s not voters’ lived reality.

“It’s sort of an alarm bell for Republicans because every day that passes less and less Americans are in favor of the war in Iran,” Martinez said. “So when you are sort of touting these non-victories and gas prices still aren’t going down, the reality of what Americans are feeling in their pocketbooks isn’t what the president is talking about.”

Beyond gasoline, the war’s other costs are climbing.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told congressional appropriators on July 21 that the direct cost of the war at that time was $37.5 billion – and he has asked Congress for at least $67 billion more for overall Pentagon operations, including the war.

Zandi at Moody’s said the bulk of Americans’ $1,650 tab, or about $860, is driven by higher energy costs. The rest is consumed by borrowing costs, such as for mortgages, credit cards and more, plus expenses for the military, he said – about $420 and $370 respectively.

And he said that the money crunch will get worse, especially for middle and lower income households already acutely harmed.

“It’s doing damage to the economy,” Zandi said. “It’s going to become increasingly more difficult for consumers to kind of digest this, and I suspect at some point in the not so distant future, they’ll have to make some pretty tough choices, and we’ll start to see it show up in weaker consumer spending.”

Meanwhile, the Iran war is escalating, and after early-summer ceasefire news moderated oil and gasoline costs, both are again on the rise. The cost of a U.S. barrel of oil topped $100 on Thursday amid a rash of fresh attacks, including U.S. strikes on Iranian oil tankers, retribution for attacks on commercial shipping. Diesel is approaching a record-high $6 per gallon, and as of Thursday the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $4.28, according to AAA, up from $4.01 one month ago. Despite Trump’s claims, an Energy Department analysis released Wednesday predicts that the average price of a gallon of gas will stay at about $4 for the rest of the year.

The administration has rolled out several steps to try to contain prices that either have not had a meaningful impact or that could take months, even years, to materialize.

That includes the recent declaration of economic sanctions – what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called an “economic D-Day” – that has yet to to meaningfully impose limits on China, the world’s top purchaser of Iranian crude. The administration’s primary lever for keeping global energy prices down, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, has already been significantly tapped and is at its lowest point since the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

A key way prices could be reduced is to get more barrels of oil passing through the Strait of Hormuz. But allowing ships unfettered access to the strait would require a meaningful peace deal that has yet to materialize.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that the strait is open and that millions of barrels of oil are making it out every day. But even what traffic flow exists now requires utilizing U.S. forces to escort tankers of oil that will never reach American markets – and at significant cost.

And now the war is widening on another front.

Pressure on the Strait of Hormuz has been relieved somewhat since Saudi Arabia expedited and expanded the use of a pipeline to the Red Sea, but that route is coming under increased attacks by the Houthis, an Iranian proxy group, which have hit multiple tankers in the last month.

On Tuesday, the Houthis expanded their attacks on Saudi Arabian soil, targeting key energy infrastructure. On Thursday, a Houthi-affiliated group released a statement that claimed that Red Sea is safe for ships “except for the previous ban on Saudi vessels.”

As prices climb, major banks are preparing for permanent disruption to the Strait of Hormuz and raising estimates for a barrel of oil next year. In recent days, HSBC, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America all recently raised their 2027 estimated cost for a barrel of oil to about $85. For HSBC analysts, the revision marks a $20 per barrel cost increase.

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories