White House officials are bracing for oil prices to surge past the $150-a-barrel mark as the Iran war stretches into its second month and the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, according to a new report.

In recent weeks, the average cost of a barrel of crude has hovered around $100, a figure that the Trump administration now sees as the new “baseline,” though a potential spike to $200 hasn’t been ruled out, a source familiar with the matter told Politico.

As a result, officials have entered “all hands on deck” mode, urgently evaluating options to tame soaring oil prices — which pushed gas above $4 a gallon this week and risks inflating costs across the broader economy.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    I really want to see Iran say they’ll reopen it only after trump is personally handed over to stand trial for his war crimes…

    It will never work, but it’ll fracture his support and more importantly he’ll be ome convinced it’s gonna happen and start turning on his own cronies even if they’re loyal.

      • KC_Royalz@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        Except it’s going to devastate a lot of people financially who don’t deserve it. So ireally don’t find it funny.

        But if gas hits that high it will devastate rural areas and the people who voted for this

        • Serinus@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          30% of the American public voted for these grifting idiots, not just the president, but his enablers too. This slightly disproportionately affects rural areas. We should be getting off of gas and investing in green energy anyway.

          I choose to laugh. It’s better than what the people of Iran got out of it.

          Man, I wonder if a better president would have come up with some kind of treaty to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.

          • MajinBlayze@lemmy.world
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            10 days ago

            How many times has iran been attacked for being two weeks away from nuclear weapons in the past 50 years?

            What are the chances these are all true?

            • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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              10 days ago

              in last 40 years, there were 2000 weeks. 1998/2000 or 99.9% of weeks this statement was proven false.

            • Serinus@lemmy.world
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              10 days ago

              While that’s true, it doesn’t really contribute to the conversation or the problem at hand.

              Are you implying that because the US has nuclear weapons that you’d like Iran to have them too? Because that’s the only way I can relate this back.

              • spitfire@lemmy.world
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                10 days ago

                Remember those weapons over which US&A started the war in Iraq? They’ve probably existed as much as theirs in Iran. I don’t believe I’ve seen Iran attack anyone before it was attacked. US&A on the other hand…

                • Serinus@lemmy.world
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                  10 days ago

                  I think you missed the point, which is that I think the way to handle this was Obama’s treaty before Trump dismantled it because it was an Obama accomplishment.

        • Bytemeister@lemmy.world
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          10 days ago

          Who is it going to financially devastate? Most Americans have no investments, no savings, and no retirement. 10,000% inflation is almost as hard to deal with as 50% for people living paycheck to paycheck already. For the investors/ruling class, a free falling dollar does a lot more damage.

  • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    10 days ago

    It honestly makes me sick that this appears to be the line for most Americans. Fuck this country.

    • innermachine@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      To be fair, once fuel prices go up the cost of EVERYTHING also goes up. So no it’s not just about pain at the pump, it’s pain at the grocery check out. Pain when the oil truck comes to deliver your liquid heat. Pain when you buy anything plastic, anything grown with fertilizers. People don’t realize petroleum is in almost everything! And if it doesn’t use a petroleum product in manufacturing, it certainly does in shipping.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Exactly. Your house could be solar, you could be charging your EV from your solar, and so your house power and transportation costs mostly negated, but everything else would still have an increase.

      • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        Youre right, but also if we weren’t using up as much for fuel as we do there would be much more left for other applications

        • innermachine@lemmy.world
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          9 days ago

          No kidding. I think our world leaders have forgotten that there is only so much oil in the ground, once it’s all burnt up that’s it poof it’s gone. Makes it even more insane that their bombing oil fields and refineries. If u want a small example of how our billionaire rulers have boned us look at the racket from synthetic rope getting hemp banned. The tldr is DuPont made synthetic rope, but hemp which is sustainable and strong got outlawed due in part to them lobbying. We have a government that exists only to stuff rich peoples pockets from what it seems. There’s more examples than can be listed of private corporations creating rules to make themselves the winners at the expense of the people and the planet, and it’s been going on for over a hundred years and just getting exponentially worse. There’s a reason wealth just keeps consolidating.

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      10 days ago

      The only thing that keeps most people complacent is they can manage to scrape by with their meager salary buying crappy goods. Take that away and Americans might get more revolutionary.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      10 days ago

      No one cares about victims of rape and pedophilia, that’s other people, caring about other people is un-American.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      9 days ago

      When people are struggling to get by and exhausted from the news, they end up focusing on themselves. The reality is most Americans don’t have the energy, time, or resources to focus on something that’s disconnected from their lives - including attrocities on the other side of the planet.

      But gas prices hit HARD. When you’re spending 20-30% of your income on gas and the price of that gas doubles, it’s a problem even before it makes everything else skyrocket in price.

    • Kage520@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      They are bracing for the voters to finally turn on them. Commit fraud? It’s fine my gas is cheap. Sex with children? Eh whatever I don’t want to consider if that’s true or not as long as my gas is cheap. Bomb a school overseas? Whatever you’ve gotta do to keep my gas cheap. GAS PRICES ARE UP?! WTF IS THIS ADMINISTRATION DOING?! VOTE THEM OUT.

      It’s sickening, but it seems the price of gas is really all that matters to the Republican voter.

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        10 days ago

        This country has done nothing except wait for someone else to solve the “trump problem.” Protests are great to show unity and dissatisfaction, but I don’t think the regime cares. Protests are not force, and the only thing, if it isn’t obvious, this administration understands is abuse and use of force. They’d probably be fine with a Tiananmen Square scenario in the US, it would justify the final grab for power.

        That said, I hope you’re right and gas is finally enough to force change. Hopefully we don’t replace one idiot with another.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    One idiotic move administration has made is to increase ethanol content of gasoline. Ethanol is corn based in US. Cost of corn is fertilizer based. The futures price of corn has only increased about 10%, while fertilizer costs are up 100%, and so no logical reason to plant corn that has been losing money for farmers for last 5 years.

    Easiest plan to bring down energy prices would be to import chinese solar tariff free, to use on ethanol corn fields in Nebraska. Leaving room for Corn between panel rows when it is viable to grow corn for food again. There’s even a path towards 0 cost electricity for 24/7 datacenters or other loads. https://lemmy.ca/post/59615557?scrollToComments=true

  • wuffah@lemmy.world
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    10 days ago

    The cost of diesel, the lifeblood of the U.S. economy powering freight and manufacturing, also pushed past $5 a gallon this month, marking the highest rate since 2022. Experts have warned that the elevated price of diesel, made from crude oil, will trigger knock-on effects on groceries, shipping and construction.

    Around 80% of Americans live in cities, where there is nowhere to grow realistically self-sustaining quantities of food. If people can’t buy groceries because it’s no longer economically viable to ship food products to stores, what’s the point of anything else?

    • Shindo66@lemmy.world
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      Kind of an off point, but in the US, if the options are: grow your own sustaining quantity of food or starve to death. We’re all starving to death.

  • Maggoty@lemmy.world
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    They’re gonna nationalize our oil aren’t they? Required sale to the government at a set rate and then government will turn around and sell into the domestic and international markets to balance prices at our pumps.

    It’s about the only option other than stop bombing Iran and that’s not happening.

  • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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    10 days ago

    West coast will run out of jet fuel in 2-3 weeks. US politics are so hateful, Texas will likely refuse to ship any by truck to say that this is “woke green policies” fault.

    • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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      10 days ago

      Per an adjacent discussion on NPR, California is considered a “petrol-island”. Conventional shipping over land is both difficult and inefficient because they’re tucked on the other side of a mountain chain. Coming from Texas, willing or not, seems to have it’s own additional expense.

      • humanspiral@lemmy.ca
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        10 days ago

        Difficult sure. Would you prefer that it is impossible to fly to California, difficult? Shouldn’t be. Cost of Jet fuel from GCC would make the difficult trip from Texas profitable.

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    10 days ago

    The GOP already knows that they have lost the majority, so they try every trick in the book to keep non-republicans from voting. But with those gas prices, even hardcore country yokels who voted for anything with “REP” to it, dead or alive, might start thinking about this.

  • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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    10 days ago

    TIL oil is only half the input cost of making gas.

    Crude oil is the main ingredient in gasoline — accounting for roughly half the cost of a gallon of gas — so when oil prices rise, gas prices typically follows suit.