The potential plan would involve withdrawing US troops from those NATO countries and placing them in the territory of other allies that the administration believes were helpful to the US-Israel war, far short of President Trump’s suggestion that he may leave NATO altogether.
The most notable NATO member opposing the US war with Iran was Spain, which took steps to block the use of its territory and airspace for any military activity related to the Middle East conflict.
Italy also blocked a US aircraft from landing at an airbase in Sicily before it headed to the Middle East, and officials from several NATO countries were very critical of the war, including in Germany. The largest opposition party in Germany, the right-wing Alternative for Germany (AfD), recently called for the removal of the tens of thousands of US troops stationed in German territory.
The Journal report said that Trump’s plan could involve closing a military base, either in Germany or Spain. It could also lead to the US placing more troops in countries closer to Russia, such as Poland, Romania, and Lithuania.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked if the president would bring up the idea of the US leaving NATO and said, “It’s something the president has discussed, and I think it’s something the president will be discussing in a couple of hours with Secretary-General Rutte.”
(Headline USA) Pro-Iran groups have used artificial intelligence to create slick internet memes in English to try to shape the narrative during the war against the U.S. and Israel and foster opposition to it.
Analysts say the memes appear to be coming from groups linked to the government in Tehran and are part of a strategy of leveraging its limited resources to inflict damage on the U.S., even indirectly. That includes how Iran has used attacks and threats to control the flow of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and maintain a stranglehold on the world’s economy. A ceasefire raised hopes Wednesday of halting hostilities, but many issues remained unresolved
“This is a propaganda war for them,” Neil Lavie-Driver, an AI researcher at the University of Cambridge, said, referring to Iran. “Their goal is to sow enough discontent with the conflict as to eventually force the West to cave in, so it is massively important to them.”
It’s not the first time memes have been used in a conflict, and they have evolved to include AI images in recent years. AI imagery bombarded Ukrainians after the Russian invasion in 2022. Last year, the term “AI slop” became widely used to describe the glut of imperfect images posted online during the Israel-Iran war to try to destroy the country’s nuclear program.
In the conflict that began Feb. 28 with joint U.S.-Israel strikes, the memes have used well-honed cartoons that lambast U.S. officials.
The memes are fluent not just in English but in American culture and trolling. Published on various social platforms, they are racking up millions of views — though it’s not clear how much influence they have had.
They have portrayed U.S. President Donald Trump as old, out of step and internationally isolated. They have referenced bruising on the back of Trump’s right hand that prompted speculation about his health; infighting in Trump’s MAGA base; and U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s fiery confirmation hearing, among other things.
“They’re using popular culture against the No. 1 pop culture country, the United States,” said Nancy Snow, a scholar who has written more than a dozen books on propaganda.
The pro-Iran images circulating online include a series that uses the style of the “Lego” animated movies. In one, an Iranian military commander raps, “You thought you ran the globe, sitting on your throne. Now we turning every base into a bed of stone,” as Trump falls into a bullseye built of “Epstein files,” the U.S. government’s investigative records on disgraced financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The animations show levels of sophistication and internet access that indicate ties to government offices, said Mahsa Alimardani, a director of WITNESS, a human-rights group working on AI video evidence.
“If you’re able to have the bandwidth needed to generate content like that and upload it, you are officially or unofficially cooperating with the regime,” she said — pointing to severe restrictions Iran has imposed on the internet as part of a crackdown on nationwide protests earlier this year.
State media has reposted some of the memes, including some from the account behind the “Lego”-style videos, Akhbar Enfejari, which means Explosive News.
Akhbar Enfejari described themselves as Iranians producing and uploading from within Iran in an effort to disrupt decades-long dominance of Western control of the airwaves.
“They’ve long dominated the media landscape and, through that power, imposed narratives on many nations,” the group told The Associated Press on the messaging app Telegram. “But this time, something feels different. This time, we’ve disrupted the game. This time, we’re doing it better.”
After the ceasefire was announced, Akhbar Enfejari posted: “IRAN WON! The way to crush imperialism has been shown to the world. Trump Surrendered.”
In addition to the memes coming from pro-Iran groups, Iranian government accounts have trolled the U.S., including in a post Wednesday from Iran’s Embassy in South Africa that said, “Say hello to the new world superpower,” with a picture of the Iranian flag. Both the U.S. and Iran declared victory after agreeing to a ceasefire.
Analysts say the deep grasp of U.S. politics and culture is the fruit of more old-school methods of propaganda: a decades-long Iranian government program to promote narratives against the U.S. and Israel.
“This meme war comes from institutions that are very aware what the American public is aware of and pop cultural references that can appeal to them,” Alimardani said.
Analysts say the U.S. and Israel do not appear to be engaging in the same kind of campaign — and given the restrictions Iran has put on internet access in the country, getting such messages to ordinary Iranians would be difficult.
Early in the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video that used AI to make it seem like he was speaking in Farsi, in which he urged Iranians to overthrow their government. The White House has published a steady stream of memes, but those are aimed at a U.S. audience and feature clips from American TV shows and sports.
The U.S. government-run Voice of America, which for decades beamed news reports to many countries that had no tradition of a free press, does still broadcast in Farsi, though it is has been operating with a skeleton staff since Trump ordered it shut down.
“This world order is really changing overnight and the U.S. is not going to end up necessarily as the state that everybody listens to,” Snow said.
Every single one of those investments was announced before she took office, under her predecessor, Republican Glenn Youngkin.
Spanberger made the announcement on X, claiming she “signed bipartisan bills to bring 3,250 jobs and $7.1 billion in investment to Virginia.”
In a separate press release, she listed the companies behind the investments — Avio USA, Hitachi Energy, Eli Lilly and Company and AstraZeneca — all of which had already announced their plans months earlier.
Avio USA, a subsidiary of Italian rocket company Avio SpA, said in December 2025 that it chose Virginia for a $500 million advanced manufacturing facility to produce rocket motors.
Youngkin publicly touted that investment at the time. Spanberger did not take office until January 2026.
Hitachi Energy had also announced a $457 million expansion of its South Boston, Virginia, facility back in September 2025.
Pharmaceutical giants Eli Lilly and Company and AstraZeneca likewise announced their respective investments in September and October — well before Spanberger was elected.
WJLA reporter Nick Minock flagged the timeline on X, undercutting Spanberger’s claims.
What Spanberger did do, however, was sign legislation creating taxpayer-funded grants for the very companies whose investments were already underway.
“From my very first day in office, I have been working to create a stable business environment so companies can hire, expand, and continue to invest in our Commonwealth,” Spanberger said in a press release. “I am signing these bills into law so we can continue to grow Virginia’s economy and create opportunities for Virginians.”
The spin comes as Spanberger faces sinking approval ratings just three months into her term.
A Washington Post–Schar School poll found she holds a 47% approval rating—the lowest early-term mark of any Virginia governor since 1993.
(Headline USA) NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is expected to meet with President Donald Trump on Wednesday to try to smooth over the president’s anger with the military alliance over the Iran war.
Trump had suggested the U.S. may consider leaving the trans-Atlantic alliance after NATO member countries ignored his call to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital shipping waterway, as Iran effectively shut it and sent gas prices soaring.
The Republican president’s meeting with Rutte, with whom he had a warm relationship, comes as the U.S. and Iran late Tuesday agreed to a two-week ceasefire that includes the reopening of the strait. The nascent ceasefire was struck after Trump said he would strike Iran’s power plants and bridges, threatening that “a whole civilization will die tonight.”
The plan to reopen the strait is still cloudy and is expected to be a central focus of the Wednesday afternoon meeting with Rutte. The White House said the meeting was expected to be behind closed doors. In the Trump administration, though, that can change at the last minute, and meetings can be opened to the press.
Congress in 2023 passed a law that prevents any U.S. president from pulling out of NATO without its approval. Trump has been a longtime critic of NATO and in his first term had suggested he had the authority on his own to leave the alliance, which was founded in 1949 to counter the Cold War threat posed to European security by the Soviet Union.
The crux of the commitment its 32 member countries make is a mutual defense agreement in which an attack on one is considered an attack on them all. The only time it has been activated was in 2001, to support the United States in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Despite that, Trump has complained during his war of choice with Iran that NATO has shown it will not be there for the U.S.
Ahead of the meeting, Sen. Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, issued a statement Tuesday night in support of the alliance, noting that, “Following the September 11th attacks, NATO allies sent their young servicemembers to fight and die alongside America’s own in Afghanistan and Iraq.” McConnell, who sits on a committee overseeing defense spending, urged Trump to be “clear and consistent” and said it’s not in America’s interest to “spend more time nursing grudges with allies who share our interests than deterring adversaries who threaten us.”
If Rutte’s meeting does not alleviate Trump’s frustrations, it’s unclear if the Trump administration would challenge the law barring a president from pulling out of NATO. When the law passed, it was championed by Trump’s current secretary of state, Marco Rubio, who at the time was a senator from Florida.
The alliance was already rattled over the past year as Trump returned to power and reduced U.S. military support for Ukraine in the war against Russia and threatened to seize Greenland from ally Denmark.
But Trump’s badgering of NATO intensified after the Iran war began at the end of February, with the president insisting that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not America’s job but the responsibility of countries that depend on the flow of oil through it.
“Go to the strait and just take it,” Trump said last week.
Trump was also angered as NATO allies Spain and France forbade or restricted use of their airspace or joint military facilities for the U.S. in the Iran war. They and other nations, however, agreed to help with an international coalition to open the Strait of Hormuz when the conflict ends.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who has been a particular source of Trump’s frustration, was set to travel on Wednesday to the Gulf to support the ceasefire. The U.K. has been working on developing a post-conflict security plan for the strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil passes.
Trump has previously threatened to leave NATO and often said that he would abandon allies who don’t spend enough on their military budgets. Former NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, in his recent memoir, said he feared that Trump might walk away from the alliance in 2018, during his first term as president.
(José Niño,Headline USA) DeCarlos Brown Jr., the African American man accused of fatally stabbing Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte light rail train, has been found “incapable to proceed” on his state murder charge, the News & Observerreported.
Brown, 35, faces both state and federal murder charges in the August stabbing death of the 23-year-old Zarutska. He previously told police he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, according to The Charlotte Observerreport. The results of his capacity evaluation were disclosed in a motion his state public defender filed in Mecklenburg Superior Court on Tuesday.
Attorney Daniel Roberts asked a judge to again postpone Brown’s Rule 24 hearing, at which prosecutors would have announced whether they intend to seek the death penalty in the case.
President Donald Trump previously called for Brown to receive the death penalty, The Charlotte Observernoted. However, a de facto moratorium has blocked executions in North Carolina for the past 20 years, The Charlotte Observeradded.
The Rule 24 hearing originally scheduled for April 30 was previously delayed to allow time for a capacity evaluation. Under North Carolinastate law, a defendant is deemed capable to proceed if they can understand the nature of their charges, comprehend their role in court proceedings, and help their defense in a “rational and reasonable manner.”
Brown’s evaluation report was completed inside Central Regional Hospital on December 29, Roberts wrote. Despite the results being ready, Brown cannot appear in state court.
He will remain in federal custody while his federal murder charge proceeds, Roberts stated in the motion. A U.S. magistrate judge previously ordered a second federal psychiatric examination for Brown’s federal case.
Roberts requested that the state hearing be paused for six months, and prosecutors from Mecklenburg District Attorney Spencer Merriweather’s office indicated they would accept that delay, Roberts wrote.
José Niño is the deputy editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/JoseAlNino
(Ben Sellers, Headline USA) President Donald Trump once again tipped his hand to some of the U.S. government’s top-secret weaponry following a daring mission to rescue a downed F-15E airman, known only as “Dude 44 Bravo,” inside the Iranian border.
The operation over the weekend drew widespread acclaim, with even former Obama administration Homeland Security Sec. Jeh Johnson calling it “more complicated than the bin Laden operation” to kill the notorious al-Qaeda leader.
During a press conference Monday, Trump relayed some of the sensitive details, likely as a way to boost popular sentiment at home and to demoralize the Iranian resistance abroad.
“He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds and contacted American forces to transmit his location,” Trump said, according to the New York Post. “They have a very sophisticated beeper-type apparatus that is on them at all times.”
The name for the rescue beacon used by the Air Force is Combat Survivor Evader Locators. But officials also seemed to allude to a newly developed technology that uses artificial intelligence along with long-range quantum magnetometry — something that took the Iranians completely by surprise.
“Our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said at the press conference.
Sources told the Post that the technology, referred to as “Ghost Murmur” was developed by Lockheed Martin’s secretive advanced development division, Skunk Works.
“It’s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles of desert,” said one anonymous intelligence source. “In the right conditions, if your heart is beating, we will find you.”
🚨 BREAKING: The CIA reportedly deployed a futuristic, never-before-used tool known as the "Ghost Murmur" to help FIND the American airman stranded in a mountain crevice Iran — NYP
Bad*ss 🔥
“It’s like hearing a voice in a stadium, except the stadium is a thousand square miles… pic.twitter.com/49XdqUVLHG
The name “Ghost Murmur” evoked the language used by the U.S. Army’s psy-ops division, who have frequently used ghost imagery in their recruitment ads.
While the revelation of the powerful new technology tended to be well received by X users, some expressed concern that in the wrong hands, such tracking capability might also be used against American citizens.
“That’s how the ai robots will hunt us,” wrote one X user, who added a video of the cyborg apocalypse from the Terminator franchise.
Critics already have pointed to the government’s selective use of technology to target political enemies, as was the case with the Biden administration’s Jan. 6 prosecutions.
While the Justice Department was able to use geofencing to target hundreds of peaceful protestors who entered the U.S. Capitol and to charge them criminally for exercising their First Amendment rights, it struggled to locate and identify a suspect accused of planting two pipe bombs nearby.
Some have suggested the bombs, which failed to detonate, were an inside job, intended to justify the evacuation of the Capitol and use of deadly force, which ultimately derailed Republican challenges as the Joint Session of Congress met to certify the disputed 2020 election results.
Surveillance technology like the Ghost Murmur, if accurately described, may create even more serious concerns for privacy advocates, preventing anyone from going off the grid to avoid mass government surveillance.
The recent Iran mission was not the first time Trump has acknowledged powerful new weapons that give the U.S. government an insurmountable advantage over its adversaries.
In the aftermath of Operation Southern Spear, to capture Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, the president acknowledged a never-before-used weapon known as “The Discombobulator,” a sonic device that caused enemy weapons to fail.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump told the Post.
“I would love to,” he added. “They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons and nothing worked. They were all set for us.”
The mission also deployed an electromagnetic pulse technology that disabled enemy combatants with symptoms similar to the mysterious “Havana syndrome.”
“I don’t know how to describe it… it was like a very intense sound wave,” one eyewitness recounted. “Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move.”
🚨This account from a Venezuelan security guard loyal to Nicolás Maduro is absolutely chilling—and it explains a lot about why the tone across Latin America suddenly changed.
Security Guard: On the day of the operation, we didn't hear anything coming. We were on guard, but… pic.twitter.com/392mQuakYV
Additionally, the mission used sophisticated, AI-based equipment — reportedly developed by Palantir Technologies — that allowed troops to see the entire battlefield, even behind walls, and to target enemies with unprecedented precision.
Palantir parent company Anthropic subsequently denounced the use of its AI technology for weaponry, highlighting the fact that it may be used for nefarious purposes, the Wall Street Journal reported.
“Any use of Claude — whether in the private sector or across government — is required to comply with our Usage Policies, which govern how Claude can be deployed,” a company spokesman said in response to the Maduro raid.
However, the Pentagon scoffed at the idea that the company sought to dictate the terms of its usage, calling it a national security threat and revoking Anthropic’s government contracts.
This week, Anthropic delivered a master class in arrogance and betrayal as well as a textbook case of how not to do business with the United States Government or the Pentagon.
Our position has never wavered and will never waver: the Department of War must have full, unrestricted…
Trump also slammed the company in a Truth Social post, calling them “Leftwing nut jobs” who had made a “DISASTROUS MISTAKE trying to STRONG-ARM the Department of War.”
Ben Sellers is a freelance writer and former editor of Headline USA. Follow him atx.com/realbensellers.
(Headline USA) A Long Island, New York architect accused in a string of long-unsolved slayings known as the Gilgo Beach killings is expected to plead guilty on Wednesday, closing a case that bedeviled investigators, agonized victims’ relatives and tantalized a true-crime obsessed public for years.
Rex Heuermann, 62, is charged with murdering seven women, many of them sex workers, over a 17-year span. A guilty plea would put him in prison for the rest of his life.
His decision to plead guilty was confirmed by three people familiar with it. They spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because the plea has yet to be entered in court. Heuermann will be sentenced at a later date.
Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney has scheduled a news conference for Wednesday afternoon, following a morning court hearing. He will be joined by members of victims’ families and of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force, which cracked the case with the help of clues that included DNA lifted from a discarded pizza crust.
A message seeking comment was left for Heuermann’s lawyer, Michael Brown.
Media and members of the public packed the courtroom Wednesday morning. Reporters and camera operators swarmed Heuermann’s ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter as they walked into the building.
“It’s a difficult day,” said Robert Macedonio, an attorney for Ellerup. “No one can envision ever in their life standing here in a courthouse on a line surrounded by media having their ex-husband accused of seven, potentially eight homicides. It’s unimaginable. There’s no way to prepare for it.”
In the courtroom, about half the seats were blocked off for victims’ family members and law enforcement officers.
The Gilgo Beach investigation began in earnest in 2010 after police found numerous sets of human remains along a remote beach highway on Long Island’s South Shore, setting off a search for a potential serial killer that attracted global interest and spawned a Hollywood movie.
Investigators used DNA analysis and other evidence to identify victims. In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier.
Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Jessica Taylor and Megan Waterman — were found in the scrub along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons.
Police have also identified an eighth woman, Karen Vergata, whose remains were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) west, in 1996, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011. Heuermann has not been charged in Vergata’s killing.
But despite the attention, including a documentary series and the 2020 Netflix film, “Lost Girls,” the investigation dragged on for more than a decade, punctuated by fleeting leads and dashed hopes.
In 2022, six weeks after a new police commissioner formed the Gilgo Beach task force, detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect by using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
Heuermann lived for decades in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch where the women’s remains were found. Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from that community and their cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities said.
After the truck discovery, a grand jury authorized more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig in to Heuermann’s life.
Detectives collected billing records for burner phones he allegedly used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with the bodies and scoured Heuermann’s internet search history, which showed that he had viewed violent torture pornography and exhibited an intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed investigation. Cellphone data showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.
To obtain Heuermann’s DNA, a task force surveillance team tailed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw the remnants of his lunch — a box of partially eaten pizza crusts — into a sidewalk garbage can.
Investigators rushed in, grabbed the box, and sent it to the crime lab, which matched DNA from the crust to a male hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims. He was arrested in July 2023.
After Heuermann’s arrest, detectives spent more than 12 days searching his yard and home, where they found a basement vault that contained 279 weapons. On his computer, investigators said, they found what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings, including a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.
Last year, a judge rejected Heuermann’s bid to exclude DNA evidence obtained through advanced techniques that prosecutors say proves he’s the killer.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz presented it as a “surprise attack” on hundreds of Hezbollah members, though reports indicate that Israel targeted sites in and around Beirut, across southern Lebanon, as well as in the Bekaa Valley, and no evidence was provided by Israel that the targeting was exclusively Hezbollah targets.
The very preliminary reports are suggesting a lot of non-military targets were struck in the course of this operation, with reports an attack on a funeral in Chmistar killed at least 10, and three girls in the coastal town of Adloun reportedly slain in another strike.
While this is a larger single strike than anyone expected, it also does not appear to be a one-off, with Israeli Army Chief Eyal Zamir vowing Israel will “continue to attack without pause” and the army further announcing the war has been rebranded “Operation Eternal Darkness.”
In the lead-up to these attacks, Israel also issued an evacuation order for the suburbs of the city of Tyre, ordering residents of those areas to head northward beyond the Litani and Zahrani Rivers. Given the Israeli military launched high-profile attacks to destroy the bridge spanning the Litani just weeks prior, complying with the order was effectively impossible.
Israel launched its latest war against Lebanon in early March, in the immediate aftermath of the joint US-Israel attack on Iran. Though it was clear in all early reports that Iran’s 10 point plan for the ceasefire included cessation of attacks on Lebanon as well, Israel insisted Lebanon wasn’t included at all, and today’s strikes indicate that not only did they never intend to stop attacking Lebanon, but are greatly escalating the conflict.
(Liam Hibbert, The Center Square) California gas prices climbed as high as $6 a gallon as oil prices skyrocketed ahead of President Donald Trump’s deadline on Iran to reopen oil trade routes in the Strait of Hormuz.
Prices rose in the Southwest before Trump on Tuesday evening announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran.
With an average price of $5.93 a gallon, California continued to be well above the national average, with one motorist in Anaheim paying $44.09 for 7.35 gallons of regular gas Sunday, or $6 per gallon.
Nevada, which buys its gasoline from California oil refineries, passed the $5 threshold by a penny and edged closer to its 2022 record of $5.68. Arizona reached $4.75 as Colorado stayed below $4 with an average of $3.81 a gallon. All of the prices are averages reported by AAA.
The record-breaking high for the national average was $5.02 in June 2022, shortly after the Russia-Ukraine war began and as the COVID-19 pandemic was ending. The current average of $4.14 is up over a dollar from immediately before the conflict with Iran started on Feb. 28.
“In the Southwest, it’s a little bit more of a dire straits situation when it comes to the prices at the pump,” said GasBuddy Petroleum analyst Matt McClain.
“We are going to continue to see price increases irrespective of what happens tonight,” McClain told The Center Square.
“But if the president goes through on his threats, it’s record territory,” he said before Trump announced the cease-fire with Iran.
In Colorado, where prices are lower than the national average of $4.14 a gallon, consumers have seen an increase of about 50 cents a gallon since one month ago.
“Colorado has still had a substantial jump [in price],” Auto Club Group Spokesperson Skyler McKinley in Colorado told The Center Square. “The floor was lower in part because of competition within the local gas markets, among other considerations.”
McKinley said that while regular gas increases were worth paying attention to, current diesel prices were potentially more notable for consumers. “By all accounts we’re on track to set a new diesel record in the United States.”
Nationally, a gallon of diesel hit $5.65 Tuesday, up over $1 since the U.S.-Israeli conflict with Iran started. The per-gallon record for diesel was set in 2022 at $5.82. In California, diesel was already at an all-time high of $7.73. McClain speculated it could soon approach $8 in the state.
While few Americans drive diesel-fueled cars today, the price of diesel indirectly impacts consumers through the price of transported goods.
“Literally everything that we have on a store shelf arrives either by barge, by semi tractor trailer, or train – and all three of those utilize diesel to get from point A to point B,” said McCain “That factors into the end price that we consumers pay for everything – groceries, clothing, your favorite online store.”
McCain said some consumers had already begun to feel some of those diesel price increases in daily life. “It’s going to hit those perimeter of the grocery store [items] first, because the fresh produce, perishable items, never-frozen meats and dairy require more frequent shipments, so they’re more sensitive to those shipping [costs].”
The U.S. could continue to see higher gas prices in the coming months, even as very little of the country’s oil supply comes from Iran or the Middle East, according to industry experts.
As a global commodity, the trading price of oil is impacted by its global demand and supply, with countries across the globe already experiencing shortages as a result of Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz. This has been felt hardest in Asian countries, said McClain.
If the Iranian government opens the Strait of Hormuz, relief at the pump could be slow.
“I see it as kind of a one-two punch – a slight decrease, and then it will take, weeks and months, to get it back down to something that’s more palatable,” said McClain.
The stop on oil tankers leaving the Strait of Hormuz means that when the floodgates reopen, the large ships could take a long time to reach across the globe. At 13-17 knots (15-20 mph), oil tankers move at roughly the speed of a bicycle, according to maritime publisher Marine Insight.
“There’s no easy way to unravel what you’ve got going on in,” said McClain. “It’s going to take weeks and weeks, or more than likely actually months and months, for prices to get back down to where we were prior.”
(Andrew Rice, The Center Square) Commercial ships will pass through the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire between the United States and Iran, War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday.
Hegseth spoke alongside Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, after the United States and Iran agreed to a two-week ceasefire of hostilities. President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire would suspend U.S. bombing in Iran while the countries negotiate a deal.
The ceasefire announcement came after the Pakistani government submitted a two-week proposal that required Iran agreed to the “immediate and safe opening” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Hegseth said the United States eliminated Iran’s comprehensive air defense system, the defense industrial base and the majority of Iran’s Navy. He praised Trump for sparing power plant and bridge targets in Iran.
“President Trump had the power to cripple Iran’s entire economy in minutes, but he chose mercy,” Hegseth said. “He spared those targets because Iran accepted the ceasefire under overwhelming pressure.”
He said the new Iranian regime willingly agreed to the ceasefire because of the United States’ display of military power in the region.
Hegseth said the U.S. military will continue to be around Iran to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire.
“We’ll stay put, stay vigilant,” Hegseth said. “Our troops are prepared to defend, prepared to go on offense, prepared to restart at a moment’s notice with whatever target package would be needed in order to comply.”
“Iran’s letting ships go through,” Hegseth said. “That will be happening, they will be sailing. We’ve done an incredible job militarily inside the Strait of Hormuz.”
Hegseth called on other countries to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as Iran allows it to open up during the ceasefire.
“It’s time for the rest of the world to step up and ensure that that stays open, after President Trump and the War Department brought Iran to the place where they’re voluntarily opening it right now,” Hegseth said.
“The Strait is open,” he continued. “Our military is watching, sure their military is watching. But commerce will flow, and that’s what you saw the markets react to.”
