April 28, 2026 10:45 AM UTC

Trump And Gabe's War On Your Wallet About To Get Worse

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• by: Colorado Pols

As the New York Times reports today, another unhappy milestone as American consumers absorb the impacts of a war of choice launched by the “President of Peace” now approaching two months old:

Gasoline prices in the United States rose on Tuesday to their highest level in four years as peace talks between the United States and Iran appeared at an impasse.

The average cost for a gallon of regular gasoline is $4.18, according to the AAA motor club. The price at the pump has not been that high since April 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. Tuesday’s jump of 1.6 percent was the highest percentage increase in more than a month.

Oil prices continued to climb on Tuesday, with negotiators deadlocked over proposals to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to tanker traffic and restrict Iran’s nuclear program…

As veteran Colorado political reporter Eli Stokols writes for Politico, President Donald Trump has tried to slow the rise in global oil prices by repeatedly making statements suggesting the end of the war with Iran is imminent and the Strait of Hormuz would be opened to shipping. Those statements have every time proven false, and at this point Trump’s credibility is threadbare:

President Donald Trump has repeatedly spurred temporary dips in oil prices by claiming on Truth Social that the Iran war is near an end and that U.S. oil production would ensure sky high gas prices would soon retreat.

The jawboning has mostly worked. Even as the global price of oil has crept up over $100 per barrel on the futures market, it is significantly less than the $140 per barrel spot price, or what it would take to buy a barrel today.

But the president’s promises can only work for so long. Supply of oil — especially in Europe and Asia — is dwindling and a price shock is coming, said Dan Pickering, chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners.

In addition to giving American consumers a false sense of security, Trump’s sunshine up the kazoo of global energy markets could be lulling American energy producers into complacency, which could exacerbate the global energy crisis this summer:

Rosemary Kelanic, director of the Middle East Program at the libertarian-leaning Defense Priorities think tank, said the administration’s confidence that normalcy is just over the horizon is keeping American oil companies from producing more. Why, they say, invest in production when the war is about to end. The problem is if the war doesn’t end very soon there won’t be enough oil for the world, she said.

As the standoff between the Trump administration and the government of Iran continues and the Strait of Hormuz remains impassable for a fifth of the world’s oil supply, Trump pretends that time is on his side. But every week, spiking fuel prices are sucking billions of dollars out of the economy, and directly harming American consumers with the midterm elections rapidly approaching. The impending political consequences for Republicans are dire with polls showing clearly who Americans blame. But you wouldn’t know it from the reaction of America’s Most Vulnerable Incumbent Rep. Gabe Evans, as the Colorado Springs Gazette’s political blog reported earlier in April:

Evans, in a phone interview, said he’s confident about winning reelection. Voters know about his record and public service, which includes over a decade as a police officer in Arvada, a 125,000-person city northwest of downtown Denver.

As for rising gas prices, he referenced the record-high national average that occurred during former President Joe Biden’s single term. In June 2022, prices reached over $5 per gallon. By August, however, prices had fallen below $4…

Evans did not offer a specific timeline for how long it could take for prices to tick back down. But added, “by election time, gas prices are going be right back to where people want to see them.” [Pols emphasis]

Unfortunately for Evans, even Trump is now admitting that a substantial decline in gas prices before the election is unlikely. It’s important to remember how much Evans crowed about the decline in gas prices during Trump’s first year in office, even though at least some of that decline was on the demand side via Trump filling the economy with uncertainty. Today, the savings Evans hoped voters would reward Republicans for have been totally undone by Trump’s voluntary war.

This fall, when Evans’ promise that gas prices will be “right back where people want them” doesn’t come true, the voters will make sure to remind him.

On his way out the door.