US pump prices set to climb as new Trump tariffs kick in

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Reuters

March 4, 2025 3:46 PM EST Updated 12 hours ago


NEW YORK, March 4 (Reuters) - U.S. retail gasoline prices are set to climb in the coming weeks as new tariffs imposed by the administration of President Donald Trump raise the cost of energy imports, according to traders and analysts.

The outlook underscores a potentially unintended consequence of Trump's protectionist trade policies, which are meant to boost the U.S. economy but could instead lead to bigger bills for consumers. A 25% tariff on all imports from Mexico, a 10% tariff on Canadian energy and a doubling of duties on Chinese goods to 20% came into effect on Tuesday. The Trump administration also imposed 25% tariffs on all other Canadian imports.

That has already triggered a surge in wholesale gasoline prices in the U.S. Northeast, a region that relies heavily on Canadian shipments of gasoline, heating oil and diesel, according to fuel distributor TACenergy.

That hike will start filtering through to New England's pumps soon, and could add 20 to 40 cents a gallon, retail fuel experts said. New England retail gasoline hovered at around $3 last week, data from the Energy Information Administration shows. "If you're filling up in the Northeast, you'll see price increases first and more significantly," GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said in a blog post on Tuesday.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-pump-prices-set-climb-new-trump-tariffs-kick-2025-03-04/

[Rhiannon12866]

1. Great, gas prices here in Northeastern New York already went up significantly a couple of weeks ago

[BumRushDaShow]

2. I was out yesterday to top off my tank

and was happy to get gas at $2.99/gal.

I know that price is not going to last, but then thankfully I'm not commuting (but do have to take the car "out for a walk" at least once a week to keep the battery juiced and fluids flowing).

[Rhiannon12866]

4. It's $3.19-$3.25 here - after going down before that

And I go out now at least twice a week, especially on Wednesdays when I run my errands (since the pandemic), except for 2 weeks ago when we had an ice storm and we were warned to stay inside.

[BumRushDaShow]

5. Your price is actually what it has been here for months

so I was shocked to find the station near me had dropped below $3!

I am hoping that winter is "done" but I know better.

My tiny patch of snowdrops are up and blooming and I just spotted some crocus leaves starting to push through the mulch.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. Congrats to you! Here there are no flowers, it's been below zero and not all the ice has melted from last week

[BumRushDaShow]

7. We have thankfully had a bit of a warm spell on and off the past week

And so far, we haven't gone below 0 for a "low" in over 30 years (last time was 1994), although we do still get single digit temps! Climate change!

[Rhiannon12866]

8. We're expecting a warm(er) spell in the middle of the week, then back to freezing

Back in the day I remember driving to the garage to get my studded snow tires removed by the deadline, May 1st. But the roads were so bad with the heavy snow coming down that by the time I made it there I told them to forget it.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. I remember the years

where my parents did the twice a year ritual of changing out the regular tires and snow tires and then we stored whichever set wasn't on the car, down in the basement. These were tires for station wagons. We also had a set of chains for those bad days. Thankfully now, the "all-season" tires work well all year.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. That's what I have now and they're usually just fine, except for a couple of weeks ago when I drove home in a snowstorm

The roads weren't plowed yet, though I passed a couple of plows going in the other direction, so I barely went over 20.

[DENVERPOPS]

33. Boy do I remember those days

Michelin make 2-3 different treads in their "all season" tires. I use the most aggressive tread on my heavy 9000GVW Trucks and Vans.
No one has better "siping" than Michelin, which makes all the difference in the world for starting on a slick surface and more importantly in stopping on a slick surface. Michelin tires are a little bit more expensive, but well worth it. (Most of the fire trucks in Colorado are using Michelin tires due to their excellent traction on wet or snowy roads, and they also last longer than other tires....

I also have chains in all of my vehicles, just in case. If anyone is considering buying chains, don't by the U.S. Made ones, go on the internet to a Canadian company, and buy the much higher quality ones they sell in Canada. They are by far ,many times better in quality and durability than the ones sold in the U.S. I would bet that 99% of the people in the U.S. wouldn't have the faintest idea on how to "chain up" a car, or maybe even know what we are talking about.

Also I recall, when I was about ten? years old, going to the gas station to fill up my adult neighbors five gallon Jerry cans.
Regular gas was 22 cents a gallon. And Diesel was 14 cents a gallon, because it costs a lot less to refine diesel compared to gas.
Now it is just the opposite in price?????? By the time I got out of high school, gas was only 30 cents a gallon, and for three bucks I could fill the tank on my VW bug......

Side note: I am teaching my two grand kids, who both have their licenses on how to drive a stick shift, and coaching them on Defensive Driving to try and make sure they won't get in an accident........The incidence of "Road Rage" is said to be higher on the front range of Colorado north of Denver than anywhere else in the country......Most interestingly the Colorado State Patrol has said that the incidences of road rage and reckless driving have taken a definite up-tick starting after the election..........Obviously, "some" of the drivers have felt even more emboldened.........

[intelpug]

35. Tire chains

I have had the best luck with heavy equipment chains made from Norway steel, Last pair I bought came from a place in Idaho years ago, Still using them. The Norwegians make some of the best steel in the world especially for things like tire chains

[Raftergirl]

20. Not where I am (Cap District) They went from around $3.19 to $3.03. No idea what it is today, though.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

3. Drive EV. Specifically BEV.

Climate change is already killing thousands of people every year. If you have the means, electric is an absolute must. You'll have to learn some new tricks, but I promise you'll also discover new opportunities and community connections. Don't be deterred by the oil-funded oppo noise: Any BEV that serves your needs is a much-needed benefit to the world, and you will see it with your own eyes.

[BumRushDaShow]

11. "If you have the means, electric is an absolute must."

The problem is that in urban areas, a large number of people rent and live in apartment complexes or are in households with no garage, so there is no way to "legally" (without violating city ordinances by running cords across sidewalks or parking lots) to charge such a car. And in many areas, charging stations are non-existent.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

12. Yeah. But if you have the means.

And support local efforts to electrify public transit.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. "And support local efforts to electrify public transit."

Here in Philly, we have had "electrified public transit" since the 1890s, including trolleys, and later the subways, and the El (that came in the early 1900s). Not long after in the (19)'20s, we had what were dubbed the "trackless trolleys" (buses that used overhead electric lines).

"Trolley"


"Subway"


"Trackless Trolley"


"El"


The current buses were a mix of diesel and diesel-electric hybrids until last year, when the last of the all-diesel buses was retired.

So here, "electric" public transit isn't the problem.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

14. How does that help though?

[BumRushDaShow]

15. This is what you wrote

And support local efforts to electrify public transit."

In my "local" area, the public transit here HAS BEEN mostly "electric" since the 1890s.

The "help" that is needed is to figure out a way to get out of the "everyone is suburban" mentality with driveways/offstreet parking and/or garages that can accommodate charging of current electric vehicles, and work on ways to allow apartment dwellers with cars or those in homes (owned or rental) to be able to "charge" an EV.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

16. Urban cores aren't the biggest emitters.

You can address sprawl, but at the same time you have to address what's happening with the sprawl that exists.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Urban cores

have so much else that is "emitting" just due to the density, through home and business heating and cooling, as well as any manufacturing that still happens.

The "sprawl" problem is outside of the cities and as you go west.

I have been to both Los Angeles (sprawl, freeways full of cars, many buses and a few subways) and San Francisco, where I could do a "self-tour" of 2/3rd of the city using ALL kinds of public transit (buses, trolleys, "trackless trolleys", BART, and yes the cable cars, etc).

The differences between these 2 California cities is stark.

But as long as the federal levels don't support local transit except when Democrats are in office, where every time a Republican gets in, any gains in that direction are eliminated, we end up in a status quo.

Right now, the GOP is illegally attempting to gut a law (The "Inflation Reduction Act" ) that has all kinds of money set aside for bringing EV more places. So we need to find a way to work around that, engage with the city political structure to do systematic "urban planning" that incorporates EV, so that we can bring the tech "everywhere" once the financial situation stabilizes, instead of just adding it in areas that have often refused to set up any public transit.

And because of that refusal, the 'burbs ARE driving into the cities for work and need the infrastructure to accommodate that in those urban areas.

The remote work option did actually mitigate this but now you have this GOP "politically correct" demand to force people back into offices for their touchy-feely fixation and obsession.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

18. My point is we need to tranform the whole network.

Not just ignore things that are inconvenient. Lots of people drive cars. In lieu of banning cars, which would be both a pain in the ass and an imposition on the lifestyles of many innocent people, we electrify the system.

[BumRushDaShow]

19. I agree

and that is why there were (and in many cases still are) "Regional Planning" authorities because you can't operate in little "bubbles".

But coordinating that can be a bear because of plain old entrenched SEGREGATION, whether by race and/or income. So the "needs" and "wants" can be vastly different and the "coordination" often breaks down because of that.

And as I noted, most of the urban areas ARE "electrified" and have been that way since they got rid of the horse-drawn trolleys. But there is a need to supplement and then replace a whole system of gas stations with electric stations to bridge an obvious gap, and that has been slow to happen the closer you get to, let alone within the urban areas.

THAT is what I am saying needs to happen.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

22. Yes, all true.

But don't ditch Tesla by association. It's an organization betrayed by its own leader. It's not just America the bastard betrayed. The car company has done enormous good, and can do enormous good in the future. What we need to do is take it over. There's plenty of players with this mindset.

[BumRushDaShow]

28. I don't think I have mentioned "Tesla" much in any post on DU (aside from noting I finally drove behind one last year)

I remember way back, when GM began mass production of their Chevy Volt, which came out BEFORE Tesla, and a couple years later, Nissan introduced its "Leaf".

So Tesla was never the only option out there.

It goes back to some simple common sense - having a place to charge ( "fill up" ) and number of miles per charge that one can get.

That is where a choice was made by a carmaker to take care of those issues themselves (as Tesla apparently did with a charging infrastructure and the batteries) rather than "let the market do it". However the other side of that coin IS the issue of those lithium batteries and something has to change.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

42. Both GM and Nissan have proven unreliable in the war against fossil fuels.

There are a lot of imponderables here, but Tesla is a good company. Fuck Musk.

[BumRushDaShow]

43. Their initial tech was from 15 years ago and GM didn't stick with it

(it was coming into an unprepared market).

We have a long way to go before the EV infrastructure is in place so a hybrid is probably the best option to transition out of gas vehicles.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

44. Oooh, listen. Hybrids are not good. BEVs are necessary.

This is a tech guy talking. We need BEVs and we need them decades ago.

[BumRushDaShow]

45. But it still goes back to where to plug them in to charge

(and I am a former chemist who had to take 3 semesters of physics including, electricity and magnetism, so not that unaware)

[AmericaUnderSiege]

46. Yeah, it's charging. Hence why people who destroy chargers are idiots.

They're attacking tangible good to represent symbolic conflicts. That's ridiculous.

[BumRushDaShow]

47. It's an oft-used protest tactic

like all the climate activists throwing soup or other things at (obviously glass-protected) priceless paintings in the Louvre.

But then we had a big news story here in Philly the past day or so where someone literally ripped the copper wiring out of the "Love Park Portal" which is one of those big video livestream installations that streams images to similar portals around the world and sends images to those other portals from here.



https://6abc.com/post/4-suspects-wanted-copper-wire-stolen-love-park-portal-center-city-philadelphia/15976794/



They stuffed the big cables into a rolling trash bin and dragged it onto the El.

We are going to see more and more oof this type of thing - some of it as a "protest" and some of it to dismantle and sell.

[AmericaUnderSiege]

48. Old vs. young, I guess.

They just don't understand context.

[Raftergirl]

21. I have a hybrid. Love it. Think I will stick with one for awhile. I fill up about once every 2-3 months depending

on travel.

[BumRushDaShow]

30. I wanted to originally buy an Escape hybrid

a decade ago but that is right when Ford changed the whole line and put their hybrids in a different model (and the Escape style completely changed).

One of my BILs bought a hybrid a couple years ago (I think a Nissan or a Toyota) and loves it. I definitely want to go hybrid because right now, that seems to be the best of both worlds... But given this period of economic uncertainty and the fact that my current 11 year old car STILL only has less than 19,000 miles on it (I bought it a couple years before retiring and paid it off when I retired), I am not in the market at the moment!

[Raftergirl]

31. My neighbor just bought a RAV4 plug in hybrid. She is very happy with it. I have a Lexus RX350h. I thought

about getting a plug in next time, but I don’t think it’s available in my model, plus the models they do have are way more expensive, so I don’t think it’s worth it. And, they haven’t gotten the greatest reviews. I get around 38=39 mpg in warm months and between 35-36 mpg in cold months with my hybrid.,

My Lexus sedan got about 23mph, and only slightly better highway driving, but that is what I drive the least.

I might buy out my lease next year but it will depend on what is new in the RXh.

[BrianTheEVGuy]

26. You don't need a garage

If you have a parking space on your own property, you can set up a charger outdoors.

If you’re street parking, you’re in an urban area and should think about using mass transit instead of driving. Your wallet and the planet will thank you.

[BumRushDaShow]

29. "You don't need a garage"

If you have a parking space on your own property, you can set up a charger outdoors.

That was my point where you have tens if not hundreds of thousands in urban areas who who have no "parking space on their property". You do still have people in row homes with garages, but as they start gentrifying through neighborhoods, they have been removing those and replacing them, although some have offstreet driveways.

If you’re street parking, you’re in an urban area and should think about using mass transit instead of driving. Your wallet and the planet will thank you.

As I noted in my subthread, "public transit" has NOT been consistently funded (particularly here in PA), so for many urban dwellers, it has become less and less of an option, and whole routes are and have been eliminated.

If you live in one of these, you may have a parking lot in the back (or along the side) -



So unless charging stations are installed there, you are SOL.

When I first started commuting to work back in the mid-80s, I caught public transit downtown. I had already been using it to go to elementary/junior/senior high school for 10 years (including going to school downtown for 4 years).

After the first 3 years, the schedules (and price) kept changing to the point where I would leave out the door at 6 am to try to get to work by 7 on the first train out, and then the train schedule shifted to be a bit later... meaning instead of being able to catch the "local" stop EL ( "A" train) after I got off the commuter train, those "A" trains were now alternating with the "express" ( "B" ) trains, and my work stop was not one that the express trains stopped at. So I got to work a bit later, had to leave a bit later, and ended up at the end of the work day, instead of catching a 3:48 pm train in the afternoon that I would now miss, having to wait for a 4:20 pm train (despite leaving work just after 3:30 pm - again thanks to the "A" vs "B" train thing). I would eventually get home some time around 5:15 - 5:20 pm.

This was because ALL of the focus for the mass transit here (for the commuter trains) was put on accommodating the suburbanites and fuck the city train riders.

But when I drove and carpooled, I could leave at 6 am, pick up my rider, get to work easily by 7 am, leave work at 3: 30 pm and get home by just after 4 pm. Sharing the parking cost ended up CHEAPER than the 2 monthly trailpasses at the time ($50 for parking/month + gas vs IIRC $75/month each for the trailpasses at the time). Even as the parking got more expensive as we had to move to different lots, it was STILL cheaper than 2 SEPTA trailpasses and the commute time was shorter (even with traffic because we were coming and going right before either rush hour).

So no, "my wallet" was NOT thanking me until I ended up switching to driving in.

[BrianTheEVGuy]

32. Fair enough

Pennsylvania is kinda notorious for its lousy transit and public services. This is why state and local government is important as well. Funding transit and right-sized transportation systems will be essential as gas approaches $10/gallon.

[BumRushDaShow]

36. When "new era" (post-80s) Republicans are involved

they make sure to overtly screw up anything that has to do with urban renewal.

The old school (R)s were never like this. In fact back in the early '70s before he resigned his seat to run for mayor, I remember being on the same train every morning going downtown (when I was going to school downtown at the time) with one of the (R) at-large City Council members - Thatcher Longstretch. He was like Poppy Bush (although a few years older) with the argyle socks and whatnot.

It was good enough for him and good enough for us.

[IronLionZion]

23. Next they'll cut funding for public transit

for those of us who take transit when possible.

Return to office mandates are also great to have unnecessary traffic and for people to use more fuel.

[Wonder Why]

24. That will accomplish multiple good things

MAGAts will get MADDER.

Bigger push to EV, PHEV & hybrids.
Reduce the number of MAGAts driving bigger and bigger pickups to show off their "manliness"
Add to the fire in the White House
Reduce the number of vehicles on the road.
Reduce gasoline use.

But there are downsides:

Hurt the poor more than the rich.
The administration will probably cut public transit funding which will hurt the poor even more.

[BrianTheEVGuy]

25. Let it happen

I’m tired of all the red-hats in their big dumb GMC Obliterator King Cab Longhorn V-10 4x6 trucks they use for commuting to work disparaging EVs and complaining about high gas prices for their wasteful vehicles.

Hopefully gas prices get to five or six bucks a gallon and we see meaningful shifts away from polluting dinosaur cars.

[no_hypocrisy]

27. Grocery Prices "enhanced":

1. Tariffs on produce from Mexico and Canada
2. Increased gas prices mean transportation increases added onto the inflated grocery prices for delivery.

Hey! Why is my avocado $5.00?!

[DFW]

34. The dollar just lost 2 per cent against the Euro overnight

Nice going, Republicans! I just got a 2% salary reduction because of one lousy Trump speech.

[Oopsie Daisy]

37. "I DID THAT!" Trump-stickers are now available on Etsy from various sellers.

[Montauk6]

38. Yep, them prices are warming up for a steep one...

[twodogsbarking]

39. I think Trump might have been lying when he said costs would go down.

[kimbutgar]

40. My husband filled up his tank yesterday and it was $4.39 a gallon

Today I decided to top off my tank in my car and it was $4.59 a gallon at the same place.

[NGeorgian]

41. $2.85 here in Georia**

!

[Initech]

49. Sorry, Wall Street, but I do not wish to suffer for this fucking maniac and his batshit insane tariffs...

So you can extra zeroes to your all ready ill gotten gains. Go shove your fucking tariffs up your worthless fucking asses. Thanks.

[ck4829]

50. Kick

[Norrrm]

51. Trump, 'I did that', stickers on sale on the internet.

[Beachnutt]

52. Be set to let the loons know why