The economic fallout from the conflict is already hitting consumers on multiple continents. In the United States, Trump moved to suspend the federal fuel tax in an effort to cushion Americans from rising prices at the pump, a direct consequence of the war’s disruption to global oil supplies.
In China, the picture is even starker. Auto sales plunged by more than 20 percent year-over-year, according to Der Spiegel, with combustion-engine vehicles hit hardest. Even booming electric vehicle sales could not compensate for the collapse. The slump underscores how the Iran war’s disruption of energy markets is reverberating through the world’s second-largest economy — and sets an uneasy backdrop for Trump’s upcoming trip to Beijing.
