Americans should expect higher gas prices for ‘a little while’

President Donald Trump on Thursday said Americans should anticipate paying higher gas prices “for a little while” as a result of the Iran war, without specifying a timeline.

But Trump said he is in no rush to make a peace deal with Tehran, while claiming the war has had less of an impact on both stocks and oil prices than he had expected.

“I have to be honest, the stock market is at an all-time high right now. I thought it would have been down 20, 25 percent,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office who had asked how much longer the war will last.

“I thought oil would go up to maybe $200 a barrel. And oil is a very different number than anyone thought,” Trump said. “In fact, this country is much lower [than others] because we have all the oil we can use.”

Brent oil futures rose about 3% on Thursday to close at $105.07 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate futures advanced around 3% to close at $95.85. Brent crude has surged to nearly $120 a barrel from about $72 a barrel the day before the war started.

Trump also asserted Thursday that temporarily higher prices will be rewarded with an eventual deal that keeps Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, with which they would “try and blow up one of our cities or blow up the entire Middle East.”

Trump’s confident remarks came as a large majority of Americans say they have cut spending due to pain at the pump, according to the latest CNBC All-America Economic survey released Thursday morning.

The nationwide survey of 1,000 people found nearly 80% have changed their spending habits in response to pain at the pump. The poll was conducted from April 15 to 19 and has a margin of error of 3.1%.

Gas prices have surged more than 30% to top $4 per gallon since the war began, according to AAA.

A majority of the survey respondents also said they expect the higher prices to last at least six months.

Since the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran on Feb. 28, the Trump administration has repeatedly said it expected the war will last around four to six weeks.

But with the conflict now nearing the end of its second month, Trump has tweaked the timeline.

“I took the country out militarily. In the first four weeks, I took it out militarily. Now what we’re doing is sitting back and seeing what deal” can be reached, Trump said in the Oval Office about Iran.

“And if they don’t want to make a deal, then I’ll finish it up militarily with the other 25% of the targets,” he said.

“I don’t want to rush it. I want to take my time,” he later said. “We have plenty of time.”

Trump has repeatedly boasted that Iran’s military, including its navy, has been destroyed. He has also insisted the U.S. has “total control” in the Strait of Hormuz, which has been choked off during the war by Iranian attacks and, more recently, a retaliatory U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports.

He claimed in Thursday’s remarks that he rejected a proposal from Tehran to reopen the strait because the blockade ratchets up the financial pressure for them to make a deal.

“They would have opened it up three days ago,” Trump said of Iran. “They came to us and they said, ‘We will agree to open the strait.'”

“So I’m the one that kept it closed. We have total control of it, and it’ll open when they make a deal or something else happens that’s very positive,” he said.