Iran war underscores risks of Trump's relentless focus on oil
[March 20, 2026] By
MATTHEW DALY
WASHINGTON (AP) — When President Donald Trump returned to office last
year, he launched a crusade to shift the country away from renewable
energy, drastically undoing the climate-friendly policies of his
Democratic predecessor to focus instead on oil and other fossil fuels as
the answer to his goal of American energy dominance.
But the war in Iran is underscoring the risks of that approach.
As crude oil prices rise above $100 a barrel and gasoline prices surge
toward $4 a gallon, the Republican president's strategy of blocking
clean energy such as wind and solar power has left Americans with fewer
alternative energy sources and thus more vulnerable to supply shocks
caused by the war, experts say. The Strait of Hormuz, a key access point
for the global oil market, remains effectively blocked as Iran targets
traffic through it.
“The biggest short-term losers of the war will be U.S. consumers of oil
and gas, as energy prices rise,” said Peter Gleick, a climate scientist
and co-founder of the Pacific Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on
global water sustainability.
“It turns out fossil fuels have their own supply risks, and the
administration has no answers,” added Tyson Slocum, energy director at
Public Citizen, a consumer advocacy group.
Trump promised during his campaign to cut energy bills in half but has
presided over spikes in electric bills as demand from data centers
soars, Slocum said. “Now we are seeing higher gas prices, and nobody
knows where it’s going," he said.
'Small price to pay'
Trump has called the conflict a “very small price to pay” after years of
terror from the Iranian leadership and predicted that oil prices “will
drop like a rock” once the war ends. He said Thursday he knew oil prices
would go up and “the economy will go down a little bit” as a result of
the war.
"I thought it would be worse — much worse, actually. It’s not bad. And
it’s going to be over with pretty soon,'' he said at a White House event
with Japan's prime minister.
Meanwhile, American consumers are already seeing the effects at the
pump.
The national average price for gasoline has jumped to about $3.88 per
gallon as of Thursday, according to AAA, after Trump boasted in his
State of the Union address last month that gas prices were below $3.
And in a pivotal midterm election year when affordability is a top
concern for voters, Trump’s energy policies could hurt Republicans as
Americans feel the brunt of higher energy costs.
“We’re always concerned when gas prices go up,” said Republican Sen.
Mike Rounds of South Dakota.
“Gas drives the affordability issue,” added GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of
North Carolina.
Trump is all in on fossil fuels
Trump has long been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore
wind, and prioritizes fossil fuels to produce electricity. Trump has
said wind turbines are ugly and expensive and pose a threat to birds and
other wildlife. While wind turbines pose a risk to birds, cats are by
far the leading threat, followed by building collisions, government
statistics show. A report by the National Audubon Society found that
two-thirds of North American bird species could face extinction due to
rising temperatures.
In his second term, Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, providing tax
breaks and fast-tracked permits for oil and gas drilling. At the same
time, he has blocked dozens of clean energy projects and canceled
billions of dollars in grants to promote clean energy, which he derides
as the “Green New Scam." Climate change is "the greatest con job ever
perpetrated on the world, in my opinion,” Trump told the United Nations
last year.
“Dig we must. That’s the Trump policy of lots of oil,” he said Monday at
the White House.
[to top of second column] |
A UAE navy ship sails next to a cargo ship in the Strait of Hormuz
as seen from Khor Fakkan, United Arab Emirates, Wednesday, March 11,
2026. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)
 Trump's policies mark a complete
reversal from those of President Joe Biden, who unleashed a flurry
of actions intended to slow planet-warming pollution from the power
sector and other industries and encourage use of electric vehicles.
A landmark regulation, since reversed, would have
forced coal-fired power plants to capture smokestack emissions or
shut down. Biden and congressional Democrats also approved nearly
$375 billion to boost clean energy, the biggest spending to fight
climate change by any nation ever.
Trump and congressional Republicans moved swiftly to overturn those
polices. The president has gone so far as repealing a longtime
scientific finding that climate change endangers public health and
the environment.
“You see an administration that has said, quite literally through
reversal of the Endangerment Finding, we shouldn’t worry so much
about climate change,” said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the
Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.
Under Trump, U.S. policy essentially says, “We’re the largest oil
and gas producer in the world, so why buy all this clean energy
stuff like EVs and solar panels from China?” Bordoff said on
Bloomberg Green’s “Zero” podcast.
‘Largest oil supply disruption in history’
Seeking to ease pressure on prices, Trump has moved to release
millions of barrels of oil from the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
and temporarily lift sanctions on Russian oil shipments already at
sea.
Officials also are considering use of the U.S. Navy to escort oil
tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. is negotiating with
countries heavily reliant on Middle East crude to join a coalition
to police the waterway, where about one-fifth of the world’s traded
oil normally flows.
Despite those efforts, prices have remained high.
“We are currently experiencing what is the largest oil supply
disruption in history,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at the
Eurasia Group.
Energy prices will likely remain high for the foreseeable future,
Brew said at an event sponsored by the Cato Institute, a libertarian
think tank. “The Iranian strategy of applying pressure to the United
States will continue to play out, and President Trump will continue
to feel the pressure,” he said.
‘No guarantees in wars’
Energy Secretary Chris Wright acknowledged that prices are likely to
remain elevated for weeks but said the world will face “short-term
pain to solve a long-term problem” as the U.S. and Israel try to
“defang” Iran.
“There’s no guarantees in wars at all,” Wright told ABC News on
Sunday. “This is short-term pain to get through to a much better
place.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said the turmoil in the
Middle East shows “the fastest path to energy security” is to speed
up a just transition away from fossil fuels and toward renewable
energy.
“There are no price spikes for sunlight and no embargoes on the
wind,″ he said.
All contents © copyright 2026 Associated Press. All rights reserved |
