Gas prices in the U.S. have gone up more than 30 cents a gallon in the last week and are slated to continue rising as the Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid the Iran war.
The cost for regular gas as of Sunday is an average $4.446 — a week ago it was $4.099, according to AAA’s fuel site. U.S. gas prices were an average $2.98 on Feb. 26 — two days before the war in Iran began — and a year ago, the average price of gas was $3.171, according to data from AAA.
Gas prices in the U.S. are the highest they have been since late July 2022, said the automotive group.
President Trump has promised that when the war in Iran ends, that gas prices will “drop like a rock.” It is unclear when the war will end, but even when it does and the Strait of Hormuz is reopened, gas prices could still remain high, according to experts.
And prices could go up higher the longer the strait, which is a crucial route for oil and natural gas trade, stays closed, said Kevin Book, co-founder of ClearView Energy Partners, a research firm.
“When inventories are low and you can’t get oil out of the ground or out of the strait, you should expect prices to keep rising at least until demand capitulates and starts to contract,” Book told NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe on Weekend Edition on Sunday. “So, we may be weeks or even months, depending on how long the strait stays closed, from the peak of prices from this crisis.”
Book added that it could take months for ships trapped in the Strait of Hormuz to get through, damaged facilities to be repaired, and inventories to be replenished before gas prices return to what is considered normal. And even if gas prices were to fall fast and quickly, Book predicted that the reason would “probably be a bad one, not a good one.”
“It would probably be recession, undercutting demand, knocking the knees out from under the market,” he said.
Between the weeks of March 20 and April 24, the Department of Energy released 17.5 million barrels of crude oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to curb high fuel prices stemming from the war, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Seven countries within the OPEC+ group on Sunday announced they agreed to increase production by 188,000 barrels per day starting in June as a commitment to “market stability.”
Higher prices at the gas pump are also impacting Americans’ wallets amid a weakened U.S. dollar. The U.S. dollar depreciated about 10% from early January 2025 to the end of April 2026 — with losses in the first half of 2025 being the biggest since 1973, according to an analysis by Morgan Stanley.
A weakened dollar could make it more expensive for Americans to travel abroad and increase the price of imported goods — while American exporters could see a financial boost, according to financial analysts.
