By Jason Lange<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) – Rising gasoline prices are already starting to bite U.S. household finances and Americans overwhelmingly expect fuel costs will keep climbing as President Donald Trump’s war with Iran crimps \u200cglobal oil supplies, a new Reuters\/Ipsos poll found.<\/p>\n
Some 55% of respondents in the Tuesday-through-Thursday poll said their household \u200cfinances had taken at least “somewhat” of a hit from the increases in gas prices. Among those seeing an impact, 21% said their finances were affected “a \u200bgreat deal.”<\/p>\n
The average price of gasoline in America has surged by nearly a dollar per gallon since February 28 when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, prompting Iranian counterstrikes on the energy installations of U.S. allies and the effective closure by Iran of the Strait of Hormuz, which carries one-fifth of the global oil supply.<\/p>\n
The economic risk is so dire that the Trump administration \u200chas mulled deploying thousands of additional U.S. \u2060troops to ensure safe passage of oil tankers through the strait, an endeavor some officials have warned might require deploying U.S. troops to Iran’s shoreline.<\/p>\n
AMERICANS EXPECT GAS TO RISE<\/p>\n
Some 87% of Americans \u2060consider it likely that gas prices will rise further over the coming month. The poll found that most Americans also expect the U.S. will deploy U.S. troops for large-scale ground operations in Iran, though few support the idea.<\/p>\n
Trump returned to office last year promising \u200bto fix \u200byears of high inflation and ignite an economic boom. He spent \u200bmuch of the last year asserting he had \u200cdone this, saying last month the country was living in a “golden age.” Even before the war, few Americans agreed.<\/p>\n
Trump on Thursday appeared to acknowledge his role in the surging costs, saying, “The economy was great … We had great everything. And I saw what was happening in Iran and I said, ‘I hate to make this excursion, but we’re going to have to do it.'”<\/p>\n
The surge could hurt Republicans’ chances of defending their slim majorities in Congress in this year’s midterm elections. Respondents to the \u200cpoll said that the cost of living would be the top issue \u200binfluencing their vote in November.<\/p>\n
DISAPPROVAL ON COST OF LIVING<\/p>\n
Some 63% of Americans \u200bdisapprove of Trump’s handling of the cost of \u200bliving in the U.S., up from 41% shortly after he returned to the White House. His \u200capproval rate on the issue, at 29%, has fallen \u200bfrom 35% in the first \u200bdays of his administration.<\/p>\n
Trump’s polling on the cost of living has been a persistent vulnerability since he returned to the White House, as he has enacted steep tariffs on imports that have increased prices of consumer goods.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Jason Lange WASHINGTON, March 20 (Reuters) – Rising gasoline prices are already starting to bite U.S. household…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":535425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,29429,97941,801,942],"class_list":["post-535424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-gas-prices","tag-gasoline-prices","tag-iran","tag-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/535425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}