War on Iran Drives Gasoline, Diesel Prices to Record Highs

The American Automobile Association says we’re paying more for motor fuel this holiday weekend than we ever have on Labor Day:

Labor Day weekend travelers are facing the highest gas prices ever for this time of year. The national average is $4.14, up 4 cents from last week. Continued volatility in the Strait of Hormuz has pushed crude oil prices in the $90 per barrel range. After a record-setting August, this Labor Day weekend is on track to also set a record at the pump. The national average has never been above $4 per gallon on Labor Day. The current Labor Day record is $3.82, set on September 3, 2012. Even though gasoline demand decreases this time of year, typically bringing down gas prices, this year is different due to the high cost of crude oil [AAA, press release, 2026.09.03].

The war in Iran has pushed diesel fuel to its highest level ever, holiday or otherwise:

Diesel hit a record price in the U.S. on Friday, soaring to an average of $5.85 a gallon for the first time as the six-month war with Iran disrupts the world’s flow of fuel.

…American diesel prices are now nearly 56% more expensive than they were before the U.S. and Israel launched their war against Iran in late February, when the national average sat at about $3.76 per gallon per AAA. Prices quickly climbed as the cost of crude oil — the main ingredient in diesel, as well as gasoline — soared amid supply chain disruptions across the Middle East, notably with most tanker traffic bottlenecked in the key Strait of Hormuz [Wyatte Grantham-Philips, “US Diesel Prices Hit a Record High, Pushing Up Transportation Costs for a Long List of Goods,” AP, 2026.09.04].

These record-high fuel prices have cost American consumers over $98.5 billion since the beginning of Trump’s war on Iran. Crunching AAA, EIA, and Census numbers, the Watson School of International and Public Affairs calculates that war-inflated gasoline and diesel have cost each American household an average of over $752. The average additional cost per household of gasoline alone is around $412 nationwide; the Watson School says the per-household war premium on gasoline for South Dakota is even higher, over $522 per household.

Unable to face those facts, the war-mongering, price-hiking White House resorts to fantasy:

Vice President JD Vance thinks Americans should be more grateful that gas prices aren’t higher.

Speaking to the press at the White House Thursday, Vance said that the U.S. was the only country capable of ensuring that world energy markets “continue to stay supplied.” He claimed that if the U.S. left the Persian Gulf, there would be “no guaranteed access to oil and gas” and that the U.S.’s Gulf Arab allies say “that would be the worst thing in the world.”

The alternative, Vance said, was accepting that “the Iranians were going to shoot at ships like crazy people.”

“We’re going to do what we have to do in order to ensure that their efforts don’t lead to a worldwide energy crisis. We’ve been quite successful up to this point. Gas, frankly, could’ve been much, much higher were it not for our efforts,” Vance continued [Hafiz Rashid, “JD Vance Says You Should Be Grateful Gas Prices Aren’t Even Higher,” The New Republic, 2026.09.03].

But the Iranians weren’t shooting at ships before we started shooting their schoolgirls and weddings and bridges. Your trip to the park today and your groceries and everything else you get by train and truck tomorrow and for the foreseeable future will all cost more thanks to Trump’s reckless war.