US petrol at $4.36 puts Trump’s refinery claims against a Hormuz supply squeeze

American drivers are paying an average of $4.36 a gallon for petrol, compared with $2.98 when the United States and Israel first struck Iran on February 28. The increase is putting household fuel bills at the centre of a political fight ahead of US midterm elections. President Donald Trump is blaming Democrats and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries, according to Al Jazeera, rather than the war with Iran.

In a Monday post on Truth Social, Trump argued that the Strait of Hormuz was no longer driving gasoline prices higher. He claimed barrels were moving through in record numbers and pointed instead to damage to Russian refineries and closures in Democratic-led states such as California. Al Jazeera reported a starkly different picture: daily exports through the strait have fallen 97% since the war began, restricting global supplies.

The average petrol price has also risen from $4.14 a gallon a month earlier, according to the American Automobile Association, which tracks prices daily. The pressure reaches beyond crude oil, the raw material used to make fuel. Refineries turn it into products such as petrol and diesel, so damage or closures can tighten supplies even where crude remains available. The dispute is over how much those disruptions explain compared with the loss of Middle Eastern flows.

Two wars tighten the fuel market

Rachel Ziemba, a senior adjunct fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told Al Jazeera that the conflicts involving Iran and Ukraine were compounding the strain on fuel markets. Damage to Russian refining facilities matters, she said, but Middle Eastern shipments remain far from normal. She also identified the risk of additional US sanctions on processors of Russian oil as another pressure on an already strained system.

Disrupted Middle Eastern flows, difficulties moving fuel out and diminished supply buffers remain the underlying problem, according to Rachel Ziemba.

Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Sunday that its forces had put more than half of Russia’s refining capacity out of action. That is a Ukrainian claim, rather than an independently established figure in the report. An International Energy Agency analysis found that the amount of crude processed by Russian refineries reached a two-decade low in June, while diesel production fell 30% over the preceding 18 months. Al Jazeera reported that Ukrainian strikes have added to price pressure, particularly for diesel.

Emergency stocks offer relief amid political pressure

G7 countries agreed on Friday to release 100 million barrels of diesel and crude from emergency reserves, supplies held for disruptions, amid White House pressure. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has meanwhile reached its lowest level since 1982. GasBuddy’s head of petroleum analysis, Patrick DeHaan, said on X that US pressure on some European Union members to release reserves, backed by a possible diesel export ban, helped push oil prices and fuel futures—contracts for later delivery—sharply lower.

California’s refinery losses provide another part of the supply story. Two facilities closed over the past year, reducing the state’s refining capacity by 17% and leaving some supply gaps, according to an S&P Global analysis cited by Al Jazeera. Those closures support the existence of local constraints, but do not erase the wider disruption to Middle Eastern shipments described in the report.

The next test is whether emergency releases ease pump prices while those supply constraints persist. Politically, the stakes are already clear: an AP-NORC poll found that 65% of Americans blamed Trump’s policies for higher prices, while 61% said the economy was worse than when he returned to office. With midterm elections approaching, fuel bills remain a challenge for both consumers and the White House.