Trump gambles with Iran war and the American worker pays

By Alma Cordero · Reporting from El Paso · September 18, 2026

I remember my father’s face when the crews stopped getting picked up during Operation Blockade. He didn’t talk about "geopolitical shifts" or "market volatility." He talked about the rent.

I remember my father’s face when the crews stopped getting picked up during Operation Blockade. He didn’t talk about "geopolitical shifts" or "market volatility." He talked about the rent. For the people I grew up with in El Paso, the economy isn't a series of charts in a boardroom; it is the distance between a paycheck and a hunger pang.

Right now, that distance is shrinking. As of September 18, the national average for gas has climbed to $4.46 a gallon, and diesel—the lifeblood of every trucker and farmer from the Valley to the Panhandle—has breached $6.44. NBC News reports that gas prices have jumped 50% since February, the same month President Donald Trump and Israel launched their attacks on Iran. For a housekeeper in a hotel or a driver hauling produce, this isn't "inflation." It is a tax on existing.

A Fever Dream from 1979

We have been here before, and the script is identical. This isn't some "unprecedented" crisis; it is a haunting. We are living through a mirror image of the 1979 Energy Crisis. Back then, the Iranian Revolution didn't just drop oil production by a few percentage points—it triggered a global panic that more than doubled the price of crude. The mechanism was the same then as it is now: political instability in Iran creates a psychological shock in the markets that far outweighs the actual loss of barrels.

The world is reacting to the war in Iran with the same blind terror we saw in 1979, and the administration is treating it like a game of poker where they aren't the ones betting. We saw this same volatility during the 2011 oil price increase when Middle East instability spiked domestic costs, and again during the 2008 oil price spike that hammered voters right before an election. The pattern is a circle: a conflict begins, the speculators feast, and the working class pays the bill.

The Fantasy of the Two-Dollar Gallon

President Donald Trump is currently selling a fairy tale. He has claimed his administration could push gas prices below $2 a gallon and told reporters that prices will "tumble downward" right after the midterms. It is a bold lie, and the numbers are already calling it out. According to FRED data, West Texas Intermediate crude was at $87.03 on August 31; by September 15, it had surged to $107.02.

The administration’s strategy is to treat the symptom while ignoring the disease. Trump is pleading with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to stop hitting Russian diesel assets to stabilize the market, while Russia extends its export bans and Saudi Arabia shuts pipelines. It is a chaotic scramble. Meanwhile, as spectrumlocalnews.com notes, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is rightly pointing out the gap between the promise of affordability and the reality of the pump.

The most capable defenders of this policy—the MAGA Republicans—argue that these price spikes are a "necessary cost" of the conflict with Iran, a price worth paying for national security. But seguridad is a hollow word when you can't afford to drive to work. There is no "national security" in a country where the cost of living is the top concern for voters and the President's approval rating has cratered to 34%. The "necessary cost" is only necessary for the people who don't have to choose between a full tank and a full fridge.

Promises Written in Gasoline

We are running on empty. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at its lowest level in decades, leaving us with no shield against the forecasts from Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, who see crude potentially spiking to $120 or even $150 a barrel if the Strait of Hormuz remains a war zone. We already saw the 2022 fuel price spikes hit all-time highs; we know exactly where this road leads.

CBS News reports that voters are already connecting the dots between the Iran conflict and their empty wallets. The administration hopes that a last-minute release of strategic reserves—similar to the move in March 2026—will artificially depress prices just enough to trick the electorate before November. But you cannot trick a person who is staring at $6.11 a gallon in California or $5.00 in Michigan.

The midterms aren't just about seats in the House; they are a referendum on a foreign policy that gambles with the survival of the American worker. When you treat the global energy market like a personal scoreboard, the people at the bottom are the ones who get crushed. The administration promised a miracle and delivered a crisis. They told us the border was a security problem, and now they’ve turned the gas pump into one. The voters will not forget who lit the match.

WTI crude oil price%22%2C%22fill%22%3Atrue%2C%22pointRadius%22%3A0%2C%22borderWidth%22%3A2%2C%22tension%22%3A0.2%7D%5D%7D%2C%22options%22%3A%7B%22plugins%22%3A%7B%22legend%22%3A%7B%22display%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22title%22%3A%7B%22display%22%3Atrue%2C%22text%22%3A%22WTI%20crude%20oil%20price%22%7D%7D%2C%22scales%22%3A%7B%22x%22%3A%7B%22ticks%22%3A%7B%22maxTicksLimit%22%3A6%7D%7D%7D%7D%7D)

WTI crude oil price. Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED).

Trump gambles with Iran war and the American worker pays

A Fever Dream from 1979

The Fantasy of the Two-Dollar Gallon

Promises Written in Gasoline

Sources