Gas prices down: Good thing Trump told Iran it was OK to attack our military base

The eerie silence from Iran, since the retaliatory attack on a U.S. military base in Qatar that Donald Trump greenlighted, has helped push gas prices lower, dropping a nickel per gallon nationally and a dime a gallon in Virginia in the past week.

“That downward momentum may continue, as OPEC’s weekend decision to boost production by a larger-than-expected 548,000 barrels per day in August adds further pressure to oil prices, potentially accelerating supply builds,” said Patrick De Haan, the head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.

“If tensions in the Middle East remain contained and the Gulf is spared from major hurricanes, the odds are improving that the national average could dip below $3 per gallon later this summer, but in the meantime we could see the national average falling to its lowest summer level since the pandemic,” De Haan said.

GasBuddy has the national average of a gallon of gas at $3.09 a gallon, and in Virginia, it’s $3.03 a gallon.

The local averages are all within a few cents of the $3.03 a gallon average at the start of the work week.

The national average price of diesel has decreased 3.2 cents in the last week and stands at $3.64 per gallon.

Trump has acknowledged that he greenlighted the retaliatory Iranian attack on the base in Qatar.

The Iranians “were very nice. They gave us warning,” Trump told reporters. “They said, We’re going to shoot ’em. Is one o’clock OK? I said, It’s fine,” he said.

So, the president OK’d an attack by an adversary on a U.S. base.

But hey, we’re paying less for gas, so there’s that.