When will gas prices drop? Official says it may not be until 2027

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in a new interview that gas prices may not drop below $3 per gallon until next year, as Americans head into the summer travel season clouded by energy price spikes.

When asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” if it’s “realistic” for Americans to expect gas prices to drop below $3, Wright on April 19 initially said, “I don’t know."

"That could happen later this year,” he said. “That might not happen until next year. But prices have likely peaked, and they'll start going down, certainty with a resolution of this conflict."

Wright later in the interview called prices under $3 per gallon "pretty tremendous, in inflation-adjusted terms."

"We had that in the Trump administration, but we hadn’t seen that in inflation-adjusted terms for quite a long time," Wright said of the $3 goal. "We'll get back there, for sure.”

The average national gas price was $4.04 per gallon on April 19, according to AAA’s fuel tracker. It was $2.98 on Feb. 26, two days before the Iran war started.

Trump administration officials have promised a drop in gas prices since the war began in February, when the United States and Israel launched joint strikes. In response to the attacks, Iran effectively closed one of the world's most important oil-trading routes in the Strait of Hormuz. That left hundreds of tankers in the Gulf regionunable to enter or leave through the strait, roiling global markets and surging energy prices.

Wright told CNN on March 8 that elevated oil prices wouldn't last long, calling it a matter of "weeks, not months."

The war is now entering its eighth week, and the strait has become a key sticking point in ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iran.

The 100-mile-long waterway connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, bordered on one side by Iranian coastline. Before the war, roughly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas supply passed through the narrow channel.

Kathryn Palmer is a politics reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at[email protected] and on X @KathrynPlmr. Sign up for her daily politics newsletterhere.