At least as far as gas prices are concerned, the problem isn’t just that Iran blocked the strait, either. Oil and gas facilities throughout the region have taken serious damaged and will take time to repair. Meanwhile, many of those that haven’t been hit have shut down until the strait is open again, and it makes sense to pump and refine more oil again. Even if the war ended tomorrow, it would still take several months for gas prices to start falling, and that’s in a best case scenario. In reality, it may ultimately take even longer.
Of course, you can’t start bringing refineries and oil fields back online until the war is over, and until that happens, who’s to say how much more production capacity could be lost in the region. Listen to Trump, which the market appears to be doing, and it sounds like a peace deal is imminent. According to Iran, though, Trump’s claims are nonsense, they aren’t negotiating, and there’s no peace deal. “Has the level of your inner struggle reached the stage of you negotiating with yourself?” one spokesperson for Iran’s military asked in a recent statement. “People like us can never get along with people like you.”
Admittedly, I don’t have much direct experience negotiating high-stakes peace deals, but nothing about the tone Iran’s officials have taken recently suggests we’re close to working something out. It also doesn’t help that Trump’s current demands appear to be, as many have already pointed out, “Give us the same nuclear deal we tore up in our first term, but let Trump sign it this time instead of Obama.” Maybe I’m wrong and will soon have to eat crow, but I’m not exactly confident our guys are going to wrap things up quickly here.
While EV ownership has left me mostly insulated from higher gas prices, and it’s well-established that I’m no Trump fan, I really hope I’m wrong, and Iran’s leaders really are negotiating for peace. Too many people have already died, and we’re days away from thousands of Marines arriving in the Middle East, which could potentially send the death toll even higher. Yeah, lowering gas prices would be great, but stopping the death and destruction is far more important. Sadly, it’s hard to have faith in that happening when the situation is so unstable, and so many signs point to things only getting worse from here, gas prices continuing to rise, and Trump’s defenders refusing to accept that their ancient guy with one foot in the grave sucks even more than the last one.
