Trump’s inflation immolation

The president who vowed to lower prices has instead sent them soaring

The surge in inflation in March isn’t surprising, given the energy shock caused by the US-Iran war. Still, it represents a poignant moment to behold the stunning damage one man can do if stubborn and foolish enough.

The inflation rate jumped from 2.4% in February to 3.3% in March. It will almost certainly be higher in April.

The jump in prices is entirely due to soaring energy costs caused by the war against Iran that President Trump launched on February 28, 2026. The biggest gain in any major category was in energy, where prices jumped 12.5% year-over-year. Gasoline prices rose 18.9%, and as every driver knows, that is old news. The official government numbers come from mid-March. The average pump price as of April 10 is $4.15 per gallon, a 40% increase over pre-war prices.

Before the war, inflation was close to becoming a non-issue. The inflation rate of 2.4% was close to the Federal Reserve’s goal of 2%. The court-ordered repeal of Trump’s emergency tariffs lowered import taxes, easing price pressures. Once the Fed feels inflation is under control, it has newfound freedom to cut interest rates, if the economy needs a boost.

The Fed will not cut rates while an energy shock is sending inflation higher. It may have to raise rates, to keep inflation from getting worse. Trump has been imploring the Fed to cut rates, yet his own decisions—first, to impose massive tariffs, and then, to launch a war on Iran—are the biggest factors preventing the Fed from doing the very thing he wants.

[Here’s the economic toll of the Iran war (so far)]

Trump ignored decades of war planning when he launched the Iran war, clearly dismissing the obvious possibility that Iran would respond by blocking oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint 20% of the world’s oil exports must pass through. Iran’s closure of the strait sent oil prices soaring from about $65 per barrel before the war to as high as $109. Stocks fell, a lot of businesses put investments on hold, and the world waited to see if Trump could solve the problem he created.

So far, he hasn’t. Trump declared a ceasefire on April 7, but there’s no agreement on terms between Trump and the Iranian regime. Iran, meanwhile, now has total control of the Strait of Hormuz. More than 100 cargo ships per day passed freely before the war. Now, Iran charges a “toll” of up to $2 million per ship. And it is only allowing around 15 ships per day through the strait. The outcome of the war, so far, is that Iran is using newfound leverage over the strait to create a global oil shortage and jack up prices.

After Trump announced the ceasefire, oil prices dropped from $109 per barrel to around $95. They’ll likely stay in that range for as long as Iran puts strict limits on transit volumes through the strait. Trump has complained about Iran’s stranglehold on the strait, but he’s also desperate for a way out of a war that was starting to look open-ended, in a year with midterm elections less than seven months away.

[5 huge problems with the US-Iran ceasefire]

With oil prices still 45% higher than they were before the war, and other energy costs surging as well, higher inflation is basically guaranteed for the next several months. Producers now bearing the higher cost of energy will pass that increase onto consumers. Since many producers bank inventories, higher input costs may not show up in final prices for three or four months. So consumers paying more for gasoline and other energy products today will get hit later with higher costs for many other products, including food.

How could a president be this stupid? Trump explicitly campaigned for president in 2024 by telling voters he would lower costs. His “drill, baby, drill” mantra is supposed to connote abundant, cheap energy, not shortages and spiking prices.

Trump fancies himself a gut-level dealmaker whose intuition eclipses expert analysis. The Iran war and its aftermath show Trump to be a reckless and impulsive bumbler whose terrible decision-making has made life harder for literally billions of people. It’s hard to think of an American president who has done more to mock voters by blatantly violating his own campaign promises.