Business Rundown: Growing Pressure At The Pump, But Is Relief On The Way?

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I'm Lydia Hu and this is the Fox Business rundown.

Monday, March 9th, 2026, surging oil prices and an escalating conflict on Iran are rattling

at the markets today.

But could there be relief in sight?

My fear is it is going to be enough to push the economy over the edge.

For the first time since 2022, oil prices have climbed above $100 a barrel.

As the joint U.S. Israeli operation against Iran continues disrupting energy supplies.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has grounded to a near halt.

President Trump and his team say the pain is temporary.

As world leaders looked to cool fears of a prolonged disruption.

The pressure at the gas pump comes on the heels of a disappointing jobs report last week

and lingering uncertainty over tariffs.

So how long will oil prices stay high and what will that do to the economy?

We don't know what the Trump administration is going to do.

We don't know what Israel is going to do.

Those are the things that arguably we have some degree of control over, but we don't

know what Iran is going to do.

EJ Anthony is the chief economist at the Heritage Foundation.

He'll look previously when we had these types of conflicts, you would think things like

desalination, plants and oil infrastructure were usually considered to just be off limits.

But now with those things being attacked in Iran, and Iran responding in kind to Israel

and its other neighbors in the region, now you're in a situation where all bets are off.

And so we don't know how long the U.S. is willing to stay in this fight, and we don't

know what the U.S. and Israel are frankly willing to destroy in the region, and therefore

what Iran is willing to destroy as well.

So sadly, I wish I could give you some kind of direction here, but the fog of war is just

so thick and so dark at this point.

We don't know which way of prices are going to go, that's the extreme volatility that

we've seen.

So not only do we not know how high oil is going to get, we don't know how long it's going

to stay up there.

Well, I guess if we take, you know, he from President Trump, you know, he is posting

a truth social about this and sharing his perspective, you know, just last night he

says he's calling this a short term oil price increase.

And he says that it's going to drop rapidly once the Iran nuclear threat is over, you

know, once this mission in Iran is over, I guess pick it up there, you know, once this

is over with Iran, and we don't know to your point in the fog of war, we don't know when

that's going to be.

President Trump has said it's going to be a matter of weeks.

We will see, but once it is over, you know, I always, I've always heard that oil prices,

they shoot up like a rocket, but they're going to float down like a feather, meaning once

they go high, it takes a long time for them to actually settle.

So while President Trump could very well be right, this conflict is going to last a

matter of weeks.

What does that mean for oil prices, though?

Could it take some longer periods of time to actually bring them back down and settle?

Lydia, it's a great, great question.

I think it will take a while for a couple of reasons.

And when you're talking about oil infrastructure, like refineries, these are not things that

you can turn on and off like a light switch.

These are pieces of equipment that literally take weeks to turn off and to start back

up again.

So if you want to close a refinery two weeks from today, you need to get the order out

now and start going through emergency procedures to make that happen.

So again, trying to decide, can I get a tanker through the Strait of Hormuz two or three

weeks from now, that has implications for decisions on infrastructure today.

Likewise, it's not as if you're going to be able to turn everything back on immediately.

And that again, that was all before this past weekend when we started bombing oil infrastructure.

So now infrastructure is actually getting destroyed, not only in Iran, but in other countries

around the region.

And so now it becomes not a matter of weeks, but months or years even before that oil

infrastructure is actually repaired and we can essentially bring all that capacity back

online.

Now it's true you do have excess capacity in other parts of the world, including here

in the US, who can do a certain degree make up for those losses elsewhere, those losses

in the Middle East.

But again, it's difficult to say here, in part because of the mixed messaging from the

administration, when we're actually going to see a cessation of hostilities, they're

talking about the nuclear threat from Iran.

But Lydia, you and I both remember last summer when we were told that Iran's nuclear

capabilities had been set back decades, and now they were once again two weeks away

from a nuclear bomb.

I mean, literally for my entire adult life, they've been two weeks away from a nuclear bomb.

So the problem is, even when we hear messaging from the administration like this is going

to end once Iran's nuclear capabilities are removed, as much as that sounds like a

clear objective, it really isn't given the messaging we've had in the past.

So again, the short answer, unfortunately, is we just don't know.

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And that's really painful for folks.

I mean, you know, what they're doing in Iran is really important.

And I think there's a lot to be said about what the administration would say is progress

being made, an opportunity to liberate the people of Iran, eliminate the threat of nuclear

weapon.

But there is a short term cost that we're seeing already here at the gas pump.

I'll just say the average cost of a gallon of gas is 347 right now and across the country.

Just a week ago, it was 299.

So talking about what the United States could do to alleviate some of that.

There have been some questioning whether or not we could tap our strategic petroleum

reserve, that's an excess reserve that could release additional oil into the domestic

marketplace.

Perhaps that could bring some oil down.

And then President Trump has also talked about an insurance program, additional insurance

underwriting that would provide safe passage for oil tankers through the straight of

hormones, which of course is incredibly volatile right now.

Oil tankers don't want to go through for the obvious threat there.

So either of those options seem viable, seem like a good option to you.

Well, starting with the second one there, unfortunately, it represents a tremendous risk

to taxpayers.

Look, if we provide additional money to the reinsurance market essentially in order to

try to get these tankers through the straight of hormones and nothing happens, the ships

actually make it through safe and sound.

Well, I guess it's no harm, no foul.

But as soon as one of these things gets sunk, it's a tremendous cost to the American taxpayer.

But the other problem, Lydia, is the fact that even if you can get, you can convince one

of these companies, look, we will provide the insurance or reinsurance, the company still

has to agree to risk their ship and to risk the crew.

And that's something that it doesn't seem like a lot of people are willing to do right

now because of just simply how volatile the region and the situation is.

But regarding the strategic petroleum reserve, unfortunately, the Biden administration

drained that and it's not to say they drained it completely, but it's not where we would

like it to be, right?

It's not, it's not where it was certainly when Biden took office.

And that means that it gives us much less of a cushion.

The other problem, Lydia, is that yes, that can help us a bit in terms of the domestic

market, but it's not really going to be able to fully offset what nations like Japan,

for example, who are now coming knocking and trying to buy additional WTI because they

get 95% of their oil from the Middle East.

And with that disruption, you're going to have more foreigners coming to the U.S. trying

to tap the U.S. market.

This is ultimately, right, a global market.

It's not as if we can simply keep all the oil here and if you try to impose some kind

of embargo, you're going to run into the problem of we need to be exporting certain kinds

of crude and importing others simply because of the refineries here in the U.S.

are set up.

You know, certain oil, this is one of the reasons why Iranian crude is so valuable, certain

oil needs to actually be blended with other types of crude in order to make it refineable.

In any way, that's really cost-efficient.

If you have the really thick stuff coming out of Venezuela, for example, you want to blend

that with thinner crude that has a lower sulfur content in order to be able to refine

it efficiently.

The oil market is much, much more complex, I think, than most people realize.

So again, it's not as easy as just flipping a light switch on and off or opening or closing

a faucet here.

Well, I want to connect the dots a little bit.

The oil point that we've just made with some of the other economic data points that we've

gotten just, you know, late last week, you know, we saw a jobs report for February that

was disappointing, you know, it showed a loss of roughly 90,000 jobs for the month of

February when the expectation was that we were going to see an increase of 50,000 jobs

that prompted a lot of questions about the strength of our labor market.

And then we've also saw, you know, you may have seen that there are some states that are

getting together and they are continuing to challenge President Trump's tariffs.

And I bring that up because obviously he just lost his emergency powers to impose tariffs.

He's replaced them with another plan B, but now that plan B is being challenged as well.

Tariffs love them or hate them.

They are generating revenue for the federal government.

And so my question is, with the tariff uncertainty, the job market may be weaker and oil

price is climbing, what is kind of your broader assessment of the economic picture right now

for the country?

Well, the fear, Lydia, is that these higher oil prices are going to be not so much the

straw that breaks the camel's back.

It's a lot bigger than a straw, believe me.

Oil spiking is after all what really popped the housing bubble if we want to go back,

you know, more than a decade.

Whatever the case, we are definitely seeing labor market weakness.

We found out with this latest report, not only did the economy lose jobs last month,

but so much of the supposed job growth that we had been seeing over the last year or two

was revised away.

In other words, there really was not much labor market growth at all in 2025.

And things certainly have deteriorated.

So in the midst of all this turmoil and the midst of all this transition within the labor

market and elsewhere, whether you want to talk AI, whether you want to talk international

trade, you name it.

Now on top of this, you are throwing the consequences of this war, namely higher energy

prices.

That's going to be very, very damaging.

And my fear is it is going to be enough to push the economy over the edge.

I think we really underestimate, Lydia, just to underscore this point, how much energy

affects the price of everything we do and everything we buy.

I was just talking a couple of days ago to a commercial farmer.

And he was saying how he can't afford the next round of fertilizer that's likely going

to come in.

Because where do we get synthetic fertilizer today?

A lot of it's made from natural gas.

And if you look at natural gas prices in Europe where he's buying that synthetic fertilizer,

they double, double.

I mean, that is going to absolutely explode all kinds of costs throughout the economy.

And as fertilizer gets more expensive, food gets more expensive, grocery prices are

going to go up.

Then think about all of the plastics, all of the synthetic clothing fibers, car parts,

you name it, all these different things that are made from, again, oil and natural gas,

they're all going to start going up in price.

And it's going to make it feel as if inflation has really, you know, reignited in this country.

And this is happening at a time when we still have millions of Americans living paycheck

to pay check, who don't have four or $500 as an emergency fund in their checking or savings

account.

We're still seeing credit card student loans and other kinds of debt stuck at record highs.

This is not a good time to be essentially raising costs on the economy.

Again, the fear, the fear here is Lydia.

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And it creates a, it creates some difficult problem, I guess, for the Fed to respond to,

right?

The real price is climbing that is a big component.

As you said, it's a big inflationary driver or it can be.

You could expect to see that showing up in the CPI if you have inflation climbing.

It makes it difficult for the Fed to respond if you also have the labor market weakening

as you just walked us through.

So before I'll, you know, go back to the start of the year, there have been talks about

a new federal reserve chair in the direction of, you know, monetary policy for the year.

Talks about maybe two rate cuts.

And I think the question is, well, what now, when you have kind of diverging, diverging

trends for the things that the Fed is supposed to be monitoring, price stability and our,

you know, stable prices and stable employment, how are they going to do that?

But as that, we make that point there, EJ, I do want to pivot to, I think what is some

largely more positive news, which is a really interesting report that Heritage Foundation

is out with.

This is the 2026 Heritage Index of Economic Freedom Report coming out just today.

I'm so glad that you're here to talk to us about it.

There's some really important progress that's being made for economic freedom around the

world, particularly in the United States.

Walk us through this report.

I understand it's not just about the business environment.

This is about individual economic freedom and measuring that.

Tell us about the report.

Well, that's exactly right, Lydia.

It's a blend of both the freedom that people have as they run a business, but also people

as individuals, as consumers, right?

And what we see around the world is that those areas that are the most free economically

tend to perform the best economically, and that shouldn't surprise anybody, right?

If you are allowed to keep more of what you earn, if you are allowed to have the fruits

of your labor, less of that is taken from you by the government.

Well now there's a very strong incentive for you to do things like work more, to be as

efficient as possible, and the exact same thing goes on the consumption side.

The less we see taxation and regulation, for example, of consumption, the freer people

are and the more they end up consuming as well.

So sure enough what we have right now is that the American economy, because of lower

taxation and also big component here, a lot of people don't talk enough about less regulation,

the economy is becoming much, much more free.

And so that's a big positive, and I think that's really been a huge part of the story

of the economic growth that we have seen over the last year.

It has been a story of deregulation.

And look, you got to give the Trump administration a lot of credit here, I think, because they

have undergone the biggest deregulatory campaign in American history over the last year,

overturning a record number of regulations.

These are examples, Lydia Burden, some overreach by the government, where they don't give

us cleaner air or cleaner water, right?

They don't make people's lives substantially better, but what they do do is impose additional

costs.

And so they reduce your incentive to go out there and work.

They reduce your incentive to consume, and some of that is simply by limiting the choices

you have available to you.

And oftentimes, when the government does that, when they reduce your economic freedom

so much that all of the choices you have are not particularly good choices, people typically

go elsewhere, right?

And I don't mean they up and leave the United States, but they just end up leaving that

marketplace entirely.

And so by reversing all of those bad public policies, you're reversing their effects.

Again, the regulatory component is a really, really big part of the story that I think

doesn't get enough credit, in part because it's difficult to quantify, Lydia, so often

you can look at taxation, and it's very easy to say, look, we reduce the top marginal

tax rate by X number of percentage points.

That's a very easy story to tell, right?

But when you look at something like regulation, because regulation kills economic activity,

now you're dealing with a counterfactual.

In other words, you're trying to estimate what would have happened had X, Y, or Z never

have been in place or had it been done differently, whatever the case may be.

So again, I think because it's a little more difficult to quantify, that story doesn't

get told as much, but it still is a very, very important story to tell.

And I think the data are bearing out exactly why.

You can look at investment under the Biden administration and see how that growth was

seriously curtailed and eventually went negative on the investment side because of all the,

I really just the, the amount of regulatory overreach that happened during that administration,

which is now thank goodness, being reversed.

Well, I think to your point, you know, according to this index released today, the United

States recorded the greatest improvement of all of the nations, nearly three percentage

points from last year, and that's reversing a decline that it had been tracked under this

index, under the Biden era.

So that's a huge improvement kind of reversing the direction and speaks more to the reverse

and policies and deregulation, deregulation priorities of the Trump administration that

you were just explaining there.

Well, my question is, you know, if the U.S. is ranked 22nd right now as the most economically

free in the country, how can we make that even higher?

Like, what changes do we need to continue to make or what areas could we continue to work

on?

I mean, 22nd seems to be great because there are 176 countries that are ranked here.

So we're talking about quite a number of them for reference here, China ranks 154th.

So being 22nd, not too shabby, but how can we make that even better?

Lydia, great, great question.

Look, this is America.

We never want to settle for second place, right?

We want to be number one.

We want our people to be as free as possible because that's how you become as prosperous

as possible.

So, how do we make that happen?

You doubled things that have made you successful thus far.

That means additional tax cuts, that means additional government deregulation.

But look, here's another really, really important component of this, in order to get that government

spending down, excuse me, in order to get the, I just jumped the horse there, in order

to get that government taxation down, you have to get the government spending down.

And that's something that will need a lot of improvement on that we have not seen enough

of.

I understand the Trump administration has made some good progress there, but they need

to do a whole heck of a lot more.

And Congress needs to get on board.

Another thing that we need to see more of is refinement of that tariff strategy that

you mentioned earlier.

Part of economic freedom is not just the ability to trade domestically, but the ability to

trade internationally as well.

And so we want to see, again, additional refinement of that tariff strategy where we are, as much

as we can using a scalpel instead of a hacksaw when it comes to trying to rebalance international

trade.

E.J.

Antoni, thank you so much for joining us today.

This is a really interesting report.

We've got a great article about it on Foxbusiness.com, so I hope everyone will go there, check it out, read

about it, and I look forward to talking to you again, really soon, E.J.

Thank you.

Thank you, Lydia.

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