Trump’s war has become a liability as US voters feel the petrol pain

March 26, 2026 — 11:50am

You have reached your maximum number of saved items.

Remove items from your saved list to add more.

Save this article for later

Add articles to your saved list and come back to them anytime.

As the average price for a gallon of petrol in the United States surged more than a dollar higher than last month, the pain of Donald Trump’s war on Iran has begun to set in.

Republicans in Georgia responded by passing an emergency tax break on petrol, cutting US33¢ (47¢) off the cost of each gallon. Other Republican-led states, including Utah and my home state of South Carolina, are considering the same option as voters grow increasingly upset at the rising cost of the war.

Not just for the country, in a financial or geopolitical sense, but how much the war in the Middle East is making their everyday lives more expensive – the exact thing that Donald Trump said that he would spend his presidency focused on.

Those voters are growing increasingly anxious. They believe the war is going to last a long time, and that the economic impacts are going to settle in and hang over them like a drought in a hot summer.

These voters will decide the Republican Party’s fate later this year. The MAGA loyal have not fallen away, but independents and non-MAGA Republicans are quickly turning against........

© The Sydney Morning Herald