Iran war’s energy price shock is likely to spiral economy-wide

Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios

The Iran conflict has a new economic front: oil topping $100 a barrel, with a near-immediate impact for drivers, travelers and grocery shoppers — while the benefits will flow more slowly to a handful of oil patch states.

Why it matters: Americans were already fed up with high prices. The effects of a widening conflict will ripple across the economy, with uncertainty about how high prices will rise and how long the surge will last.

Fears about a stagflationary scenario are back, with a fresh inflationary shock coming alongside new signs of labor market weakness.
While higher oil prices should mean higher revenue for America’s energy extraction industries and limit the damage to GDP, the cost for already-strained households and key industries is likely to be immediate and visible.

Driving the news: Oil prices late Monday morning fell back some after topping $100 for the first time since the early months of the Ukraine war in 2022.

West Texas Intermediate crude futures, the benchmark for U.S. oil, were up about 6% as of 11:30am ET, at $96 a barrel.

What they’re saying: “A key risk to our sanguine base case is that non-linear effects could set in if the shock to oil prices is large and sustained,” Bank of America economist Aditya Bhave wrote in a note to clients.

“A big spike in oil prices — and the sort of conflict that would cause such a shock — would likely lead to a meaningful tightening in financial conditions. And the economy is probably more sensitive than usual to markets,” Bhave said, noting that spending by higher-income households has been boosted by the gains in stock prices.
Lower-income households “are already struggling, so further erosion of their real spending power from surging energy prices could cause another leg up in delinquencies (particularly credit cards and autos),” he added.

State of play: Gasoline price effects are most visible for consumers. Pump prices rose roughly 50 cents, to $3.45 a gallon, following the initial attacks at the end of February.

That will almost certainly keep rising on the back of the surge in crude prices, with GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan posting on X that “stations are likely to start pushing these increases on to their fuel pumps today as they see it in their cost.”

What’s next: Higher diesel prices would put upward pressure on costs for other consumer goods, as our colleague Nathan Bomey notes.

The effects would be felt especially acutely in global shipping costs and on jet fuel and European utilities, which rely on liquefied natural gas flowing through the strait.
What might follow in the months ahead: higher prices for fertilizer, farm equipment and more — all key inputs for food manufacturers that could pass along effects to the grocery aisle.

Widening conflict in the Middle East runs headfirst into President Trump’s affordability agenda. Trump, who made lower gas prices a centerpiece of his economic pitch, is now arguing the pain is worth it.

“Short-term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!,” Trump posted Sunday night on Truth Social.

Yes, but: For now, financial markets are signaling that any shock might be fleeting. Oil futures prices decline as you go further out in time, with traders currently pricing crude prices falling back below $70 a barrel in the next six months, according to CME.

Zoom in: “While $100 per barrel oil is unsettling for stocks, the inflation, stock market and earnings picture are each in a better position now than they were in March 2022, the last time that oil prices crossed $100 during the aftermath of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” Carol Schleif, BMO Private Wealth’s chief market strategist, wrote in a note.

What’s different this time? AI. Yet an energy shock could shift the economics of massive data center buildouts that are necessary to sustain AI adoptions.
“Higher energy prices could become a bottleneck for AI capex,” BofA’s Bhave wrote. “Delays in investment because of an energy price shock could be a major headwind for 2026 growth.”