US gas prices edge up again as US-Iran tensions heighten over strait of Hormuz

The average price of diesel fuel in the US has increased again to more than $5 a gallon, according to the AAA, and the average price of gas is almost $4, returning to their highs before the June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.It’s a reminder to consumers and truckers of the costs of the Iran war and the unpredictable rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran. A year ago today, the AAA says, the average price for a gallon of diesel was $3.72, almost a dollar and a quarter less than it is now.Earlier this week, Iran declared the Strait of Hormuz shut, after both Iran and the US claimed to be the guarantors of safe passage through the strategic waterway. Then the US announced it was imposing a blockade on all ship traffic to or from Iranian ports.Diesel price hikes, the AAA says, lead to rising costs across the board. “The impact is universal,” said AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. “Everything gets to the retail consumer by diesel-burning truck.”The renewed diplomatic uncertainty and new US and Iranian airstrikes are driving prices higher both at the pump and on the international wholesale markets.The price of a barrel of oil stands at about $81. That’s still down from the highs during the most intense part of Trump’s war in Iran but wholesale prices recently have been driven by erratic news from the White House.On Monday, the president suddenly announced the US would take over the strait and charge 20% of the value of any cargo going though the waterway, but then dropped the plan.The AAA’s Sinclair said price hikes are happening because of the reality of production declines and the public commentary by the White House as well. Trump, he said, “puts in on [the] 20% [transit fee] and then it’s gone. So much of this is happening on whim that’s its really impossible. The markets respond to whim. This is a market subject to rumors and other kinds of activities rumor or imagined.”