The War He Called 'Over Soon' Is Now $4.32 a Gallon

Seven months after the president promised a four-to-six-week war, its bill has arrived at the pump.

"He has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia. Let him go after targets, but not diesel fuel, because he's causing a shortage of diesel."

— President Donald Trump, press gaggle in County Clare, Ireland, September 13, 2026

When the United States and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, President Donald Trump promised a short, decisive campaign that would be over in "four to six weeks," as The Guardian later recounted. Seven months later, the war is still going, and its first real invoice has reached every American gas station.

The conflict's first major consequence was the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, the waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world's oil once flowed. To work around the blockade, Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil exporter, turned to its East-West Pipeline, a 1,200-kilometer line that runs across the desert from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The line, known as the Petroline, has been rerouting around 4 million barrels a day, about 4 percent of global supply, ever since the strait shut.

It was, in a sense, the war's own escape route.

Last Friday, a drone strike hit a pumping station on the line at al-Mesabaah. Saudi Arabia shut the pipeline down and, according to reports, blamed drones launched by Iran-backed militias based in Iraq. Satellite photos released Sunday by the imaging firm Vantor showed the station charred, the ground blackened, fire damage spreading across the desert. Two officials familiar with damage assessments told the Associated Press that repairs will take weeks. One estimate ran three to five weeks. Another, via Reuters, up to six.

The irony is structural: the pipeline built to escape the war's first consequence was destroyed by the war itself.

The timing could hardly be worse. Brent crude topped $109 a barrel on Monday, the highest since May, after news broke that the damaged line would be offline for weeks. The Guardian reported that Saudi oil buyers and traders warn the country will run out of oil to export if the pipeline is not restored within days, a potential loss of up to 4 percent of global supply. Industry sources tell the paper that the Red Sea port of Yanbu holds stock for just five to seven days of exports.

Bloomberg's Alex Longley put it plainly: "Whatever happens, the oil market will need a quick fix. It's currently screaming for barrels." Saudi output has already been hollowed out by the war. According to Politico, production fell to 6 million barrels a day in August from nearly 10 million a year earlier. Meanwhile, Yemen's Houthis, who this week seized the strategic island of Perim in the Bab el-Mandeb strait and the port city of Mocha, have ramped up attacks on Red Sea shipping. And Iran, which now requires vessels to obtain permission to transit the strait, is considering charging a fee for the privilege. The world's busiest oil chokepoint is being converted into a tollbooth.

Somewhere between the Middle East and the American driver sits a price board. Data released Monday by the American Automobile Association put the national average for regular gasoline at $4.32 a gallon, up 36 percent over the past year. Diesel hit a record $6.23, up about 66 percent since February. Diesel is the number that matters most, because diesel is what moves trucks, freight, produce, and nearly everything else in the American economy.

The emergency valve is nearly dry. In March, the Trump administration released 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, one of the largest draws down in the stockpile's history. The reserve has since fallen to 289.7 million barrels, its lowest level in four decades, according to Energy Department figures reported by KCRA.

The national emergency reserve, built for exactly this kind of emergency, is now nearly empty, and the emergency has no end date.

Meanwhile, the White House has been busy finding someone else to foot the bill. On Sunday, speaking to reporters at the Irish Open, the president blamed the diesel spike on the war in Ukraine. He said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy "has to stop knocking out diesel fuel in Russia" and claimed that Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries are having a larger effect on global supply than the war the United States launched. The strait choking the market has been closed since February, and the blockade has nothing to do with Kyiv.

There are other versions of the story, depending on the week. Earlier in the war, the president called the conflict's economic toll a "very small price to pay" for global security, according to PBS. Last week, he told reporters that prices which spiked because of the war "likely won't come down" until after the midterms. And Energy Secretary Chris Wright promised, according to WISN, that gas prices will fall "significantly" as the administration works to boost domestic production.

Politico reported this week that oil is surging and "Trump has few options to stop it," with White House officials conceding there is "not too much they can do about it." Congress, which was scheduled to take up a bipartisan Russia and Iran sanctions package Monday, has largely gone home to campaign. The House breaks after this week for as long as seven weeks.

Translation: the war has become a tax, and the taxpayer is whoever is holding a gas can.

The sanctions bill, named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, will arrive in November. The barrels will not. The Houthis will keep their island and their port. The strait will keep its tollbooth. And the pipeline, three to five weeks from repair at best, will sit blackened in the desert while the market screams for barrels it does not have.

The president promised a war that would end in four to six weeks. The pump, which has been asking for seven months, does not negotiate. It just adds, a few cents a day, the cost of every day the promise goes unkept.