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By Giulia Carbonaro
Senior Reporter
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Gas prices are up in all 50 states and the District of Columbia since February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched their first joint strikes on Iran which started the conflict now disrupting the global oil market.
While California drivers are still paying the highest average gas prices in the U.S., Arizona has seen the biggest gas price hike in the nation over the last month, according to data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), up nearly one dollar.
On February 13, drivers in Arizona were paying an average of $3.146 statewide for a gallon of regular gas; they are now paying $4.108—96 cents more.
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New Mexico saw the second-biggest monthly increase, with gas prices surging from $2.697 to $3.639 (up 94 cents) within the same period. Next come Colorado, where a gallon of regular gas now cost $3.683, up from $2.809 a month ago (up 87 cents); California, where drivers now pay $5.416 for a gallon of regular gas, up from $4.562 a month earlier (up 85 cents); and Nevada, where gas is now at $4.448 from $3.629 a month earlier (up 82 cents).
The Midwest—and one Southern state—have also been hit hard by price increases. Iowa had the sixth-biggest monthly increases on Friday, at 81 cents, followed by Florida (79 cents), Oklahoma (79 cents), Minnesota (77 cents) and Utah (76 cents).
Weekly increases offer a slightly different picture, but the West still takes the brunt of the steep jumps in gas prices reported all across the country.
Between March 13 and March 6, Utah saw the biggest gas price hike, with an average gallon of regular gas statewide going from $2.989 to $3.532 (up 54 cents). It was followed by California (up 51 cents to $5.416), New Mexico (up 49 cents to $3.639), Nevada (up 48 cents to $4.448), and Colorado (up 45 cents to $3.683). Arizona had the sixth-highest weekly increases in the country.
Why Are Gas Prices Rising?
The expanding war in the Middle East has disrupted oil production and shipping across the region, sending global crude oil prices spiking. On Monday, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, briefly reached $119.50 per barrel—the highest level since after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. While prices have fallen since then, they remain within the $90-per-barrel range.
This, in turn, is creating some pain at the gas pump for Americans, even as the U.S., as the world’s largest oil producer, should be relatively insulated from disruptions in the region. The national average price for a gallon of regular gas on Friday was $3.630, up from $3.320 a week earlier and $2.940 a month earlier, according to AAA.
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These increases in the U.S. shows just how connected gas prices are to the global market. As traders fear the impact of a chokehold on traffic in the Strait of Hormuz—a narrow waterway between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman which carries roughly 20 percent of global oil flows—oil and gas prices are rising everywhere, including in the U.S.
“Saying gas prices are a scam because we don’t import oil from Iran is like saying egg prices shouldn’t rise at your grocery store because the bird flu outbreak happened on farms in another state,” Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, wrote on X earlier this week.
“When supply is threatened anywhere, prices move everywhere.”
Will They Continue Rising?
According to De Haan, Americans are now paying “roughly $250 million more on gasoline than they did 30 days ago.”
President Donald Trump said in a five-minute interview with Reuters this week that he was not worried about gas prices rising, and that they will come down once the war ends. “I don’t have any concern about it,” he said. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline prices go up a little bit.”
In a post on Truth Social, he said that higher oil prices were good for the U.S., as the country is a major oil producer. “When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he said.
But the Trump administration has announced this week that it will release 172 million barrels from the country’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve in a bid to reduce oil and gas prices.
Experts, however, believe that oil and gas prices will not come down significantly until safe transit for ships carrying oil is reestablished in the Strait of Hormuz. It is unclear what will happen in the crucial waterways: a couple of days ago, reports said Iran had begun laying mines in the strait, and Iran’s new leader Mojtaba Khamenei vowed to keep the strait closed. On Thursday, Iran’s UN ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani said Tehran will keep the strait open for navigation.
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