Here's a fun thought: what if $4 gas turns out to be the good old days? That's essentially what Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf is warning Americans, as President Donald Trump's administration prepares to block ship traffic tied to Iran starting Monday. In a social media post that mixed trolling with a dash of economic prophecy, Ghalibaf suggested that a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports will send oil prices sharply higher, making current pump prices look like a bargain in hindsight.
U.S. Central Command says the blockade kicks off at 10 a.m. ET on April 13. It'll apply to all maritime traffic entering or leaving Iranian ports, though ships just passing through the Strait of Hormuz on their way to non-Iranian destinations can still go about their business. So it's not a full shutdown of the strait—a key global oil chokepoint—but it's enough to rattle markets and, apparently, Iranian officials.
Ghalibaf took to X (formerly Twitter) to drive the point home. He posted a screenshot of gasoline prices in the Washington area with a cheeky message: "Enjoy the current pump figures. With the so-called ‘blockade', Soon you'll be nostalgic for $4–$5 gas." For good measure, he threw in some meme-math notation—"ΔO_BSOH>0 ⇒ f(f(O))>f(O)"—which is basically a fancy way of saying an oil shock from blocking the strait won't be a one-time jump; it'll snowball into something bigger. Because nothing says "geopolitical tension" like cryptic algebra on social media.
This all comes after talks between the U.S. and Iran fell apart in Islamabad. Trump said the United States would move to block ship traffic after Tehran failed to fully reopen the waterway, following Vice President JD Vance's warning that negotiations had failed. The discussions, which Trump noted ran close to 20 hours, covered Tehran's nuclear program and the Strait of Hormuz, with many items settled but the main dispute unresolved. Trump named Abbas Araghchi, Ali Bagheri, and Ghalibaf as key Iranian participants in those talks.
Meanwhile, back in the U.S., gas prices are already climbing. The AAA listed the national average for regular gasoline at $4.125 a gallon as of April 12, with California hitting $5.894 and Washington at $5.390. Oregon and Nevada weren't far behind, sitting just under $5. In a separate report, Reuters noted that Trump has personally acknowledged gas prices could stay the "same, or maybe a little bit higher" through the November midterms. So if Ghalibaf's warning pans out, Americans might soon be looking back fondly at today's prices—and wondering how a blockade half a world away made filling up their tanks a lot more expensive.
