Rising Gas Prices Have Already Cost U.S. Drivers An Extra $4 Billion

Currently, AAA says the average price of a gallon of gas in the U.S. is $3.884. Or at least it was at the time of writing. Odds are, in the time it took for this post to make it through editing and onto our blogsite, that number is now higher. And once it hits $3.98, a gallon of gas will officially cost $1 more than it did before Republicans decided to start killing Iranians again. Considering how much driving U.S. drivers do, those higher prices add up fast, with Trump and Netanyahu's war already costing us roughly $4 billion more at the pump.

That figure comes from GasBuddy and its head analyst Patrick De Haan, who, incidentally, also makes a great follow if you're on BlueSky and looking for more data on gas prices. According to De Haan, GasBuddy's data shows that compared to what we were paying before the war, Americans are spending at least an extra $350 million per day on gas. And in total, Trump's completely unnecessary war has forced drivers to spend $3.7 billion more than they would have without the war. Except that post is a day old, and even if that $350 million daily estimate is outdated, as long as I can still add correctly, we've already crossed the $4 billion mark. 

In case I wasn't already clear enough about this, we aren't talking about how much drivers are paying in total. That $4 billion is the extra money we would have had to spend on gas if Trump hadn't ignored intelligence assessments, attacked Iran again, and driven gas prices through the roof. Say what you will about the 79-year-old Republican in the White House, but he sure is good at making everything less affordable. 

EV drivers have mostly been spared for now, and everyone is probably contemplating more efficient ways to get around, but it's not just gasoline that's gotten more expensive. Diesel prices are also through the roof, and according to De Haan, the increased cost of diesel has already set the record for the largest two-week, three-week, and four-week increases we've ever seen. Similar record-setting diesel increases have also hit our friends up in Canada, and as diesel goes up, so do transportation costs. So, even if you drive an EV that you charge using solar panels at home, you'll still have to deal with higher prices on other products.

Considering Trump promised to end inflation and lower prices while campaigning, he's obviously incredibly concerned about how much more his stupid war has done to gas prices, right? Of course not. In fact, according to Trump, you should be grateful you aren't paying more. As NBC News put it:

"Everything was going great, the economy was great, oil prices were very low, gasoline was dropping too — I mean, we had $1.99, $1.85. And I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, 'I hate to make this excursion but we have to do it,' and I actually thought the numbers would be worse," Trump said in the Oval Office.

Before he decided to strike Iran, the president said, he thought, "Oil prices will go up, the economy will go down a little bit."

He added, "I thought it would be worse, much worse actually," before saying, "It's not bad and it's going to be over with pretty soon."

Maybe I'm misreading those quotations, but it sure sounds like Trump is saying he chose to attack Iran knowing full-well that gas prices would skyrocket, and you should stop complaining about $4 gas because he was willing to accept even higher gas prices if it meant he got to murder some Iranian schoolgirls. As for his claim the war will be over soon, and gas prices are about to drop, that would be wonderful if it were true, but now that he and Netanyahu have forced Iran into a no-win situation, I'm not sure I see that happening. After all, what incentive do they have to negotiate, knowing we might attack again at any time?