As if a global trade war wasn’t enough for businesses and consumers to contend with, it’s looking increasingly like the Israel-Iran conflict could reach the brink of a full-blown war. While the conflict is playing out thousands of miles away from US soil, Americans may not be able to escape the economic impact of it.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell told reporters Wednesday after the central bank’s latest monetary policy meeting that officials are monitoring the situation. “What’s tended to happen is when there’s turmoil in the Middle East, you may see a spike in energy prices, but it tends to come down,” he said in response to a question from CNN’s Matt Egan.
“Those things don’t generally tend to have lasting effects on inflation, although, of course, in the 1970s they famously did because you had a series of very, very large shocks,” Powell added.
Among those: The Iranian Revolution, which caused global oil production to fall substantially and then contributed to already-high gas prices as a result of the Arab oil embargo following the Yom Kippur war. Powell seemed assured there isn’t a risk of such a scenario this time around, adding that “the US economy is far less dependent on foreign oil than it was back in the 1970s.”
Economists, however, aren’t as convinced that the conflict doesn’t present a major risk to the US economy.
In fact, JPMorgan economists said in a recent note to clients, “The US and global economies are set to absorb multiple shocks this year.” Chief among those is the potential for a Middle East war, they said.
“One of the most direct impacts on US consumers would be if the Strait of Hormuz was closed, leading to a spike in energy costs as the flow of seaborne oil and gas becomes disrupted,” said James Knightley, chief international economist at ING. The US Energy Information Administration recently referred to the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, as “one of the world’s most important oil chokepoints.”
Last year, the amount of oil that passed through the waterway averaged 20 million barrels per day, it said, which amounts to about 20% of global petroleum liquids consumption.
“Very few alternative options exist to move oil out of the strait if it is closed,” the EIA said in an online article on Monday. Meanwhile, Iran has repeatedly threatened to shut down the strait as a form of retaliation.
That could end up proving to be more limited than what the Iranian government has threatened, though, analysts at S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a recent note.
“Iran’s leadership is unlikely to fully close the Strait of Hormuz for an extended period; as a first recourse, it is more likely that Iran’s naval forces deploy along the Strait and block passage to selected vessels depending on flag and destination.”
Even though the US is considered energy independent, gas prices would still “rocket higher,” Knightley.
While tariff-related price hikes that economists widely expect to occur haven’t shown up in the all-encompassing inflation reports the US government publishes, most believe it’s only a matter of time.
As the economy recovered from the pandemic, inflation accelerated across the globe. Then, while that unfolded, the war between Russia and Ukraine took hold, sending gas prices soaring and pushing inflation even higher.
That could very well play out again if gas prices shoot higher due to the conflict.
“With tariff-induced price hikes already set to squeeze household spending power, higher gasoline prices would intensify the strain on consumer pockets, risking a more pronounced slowdown in the economy,” Knightley told CNN.
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