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By Brendan Cole and Toby Meyjes
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President Donald Trump has said gas prices will go down "tremendously" once the war with Iran is over as Americans grapple with the soaring cost of fuel caused by the conflict.
According to AAA, the average gas price was $4.108 per gallon on Wednesday. Before the U.S. and Israel launched strikes against Iran on February 28, it was under $3.
The soaring cost, and previous predictions that the increase may stick around until later this year, have led to warnings that fuel prices may prove a challenge for Republicans at the midterm elections in November.
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However, Trump told Fox Business Network's Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Wednesday morning that by then, energy prices could decrease, including for electricity.
He said the market turbulence and oil price spike caused by the Iran war was justifiable given the nuclear threat he said Tehran had posed. He also said the price of oil, which was about $92 on Wednesday, was better than he had expected given the dire warnings of its going up to $200.
"If you told me we were going to be at only $92 a barrel—$92 a barrel—I would have been very surprised," the president said, adding, "I am very happy, and it is going to come dropping down very big as soon as it's over."
While the Iran war has hit the U.S. economy, "it is going to recover" by the midterms, Trump said, adding, "I think that we will be somewhere around where we were, maybe even lower."
On Monday, Trump announced a naval blockade of all Iranian ports after the U.S. agreed to stop bombing Iran last week. "I was willing to do that to stop a nuclear weapon to be used against this country or the Middle East," the president said. He continued, "To stop that, it was certainly worthwhile."
Trump added that the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of world's oil and gas transits, "is opening" following Iran's blockade of the waterway. He also said "the ships are coming back and forth" without providing further details.
The president reiterated his reasons for the war, telling Bartiromo that the Iran nuclear deal signed in 2015, in which Tehran agreed to inspections of its atomic program in exchange for sanctions relief, "was the worst deal ever made."
"I had to divert because if I didn't do that, right now you would have Iran with a nuclear weapon, and if they had a nuclear weapon, you would be calling everybody over there sir, and you don't want to do that."
When asked whether the war was over, Trump replied, "I think it is close to over," adding that if the conflict ended today, it would take Iran "20 years to rebuild that country, and we're not finished."
"I think they want to make a deal very badly," he continued.
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