2022's Record-Breaking Gas Prices Were Terrible, But The Current Situation Is Shaping Up To Be Far Worse

Hey, everyone, great news! Gas may be way more expensive than it was just a couple of weeks ago, but it's actually not so bad! Sure, gas is $4 a gallon on average right now, but four years ago, when a different ancient guy with one foot in the grave was still president, it was even more expensive. In fact, according to AAA, the U.S. set a new record on June 14, 2022, with an average price of a gallon of regular coming in at a still-cheap-for-Europe $5.016. Don't you feel better now? No? That didn't fix it? Huh, I wonder why not. 

For those who may not remember everything that happened four years ago, on February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. Within days, the international community responded with sanctions that cut off most of Russia's oil money, temporarily sending gas prices in the U.S. over $4 for the first time in a decade. It was such a sudden, drastic change, we ended up creating Gas Price Watch, just to keep an eye on how crazy things were getting. Turns out, pretty crazy, because that record still holds, and even though other oil-producers rushed to increase production, it still took several months for gas prices to return to pre-invasion levels. 

Still, even though gas was significantly more expensive at its peak during the Biden administration, the current situation isn't remotely comparable and is shaping up to potentially be even worse for gas prices than Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but the risks are far too high to brush them off, as everyone worried the situation in the middle east could still spiral out of control just hates America or something. 

I almost can't believe I have to say this, but I need you to remember Biden didn't start the war in Ukraine. That was Putin, the guy who runs Russia — a completely different country that is, most notably, not the United States of America. Biden offered U.S. assistance to Ukraine, but the U.S. was not the aggressor there. This time around, Trump is the aggressor. It was a U.S. missile that blew up that girls' school. And yeah, Trump may have wanted Israel to attack first, but he didn't get dragged into this against his will.

If I borrowed your car and got rear-ended at a stoplight, you'd probably be upset, but you wouldn't blame me. You'd blame the driver who hit me because they caused the crash. And if I later total your car in a crash I caused, it wouldn't somehow be hypocritical to get mad at me, even though you weren't mad the last time because the second time around, I'm the one who crashed the car. It isn't a difficult concept to understand, and yet Trump's defenders act like he's somehow blameless, just because Putin's invasion of Ukraine caused prices to jump even higher while Biden was president. It's so dumb, and yet, it just won't die.

The war with Iran also still has the potential to continue to spiral and send gas prices even higher than they were in June 2022. We did successfully kill Iran's ancient guy with one foot in the grave, but now his son is in charge and mad we blew up his family. Iran can't trust the U.S. or Israel not to attack again after we broke the last peace deal, nor can Iran's leaders trust it's even safe to negotiate. But while we may have bigger numbers and better missiles, Iran can still pull the lever that makes gas more expensive in the U.S., and it appears prepared to keep pulling it until it gets what it wants.

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.