Trump on rising gas prices during Iran operation: ‘If they rise, they rise’

US President Donald Trump says he is not concerned about rising US gas prices driven by the widening Iran conflict, telling Reuters in an exclusive interview that the US military operation was his priority.

“I don’t have any concern about it,” he says, when asked about the higher prices at the pump. “They’ll drop very rapidly when this is over, and if they rise, they rise, but this is far more important than having gasoline price go up a little bit.”

Trump has outlined a four-to-five-week timeline for the military campaign against Tehran, but political and military experts have questioned it, noting that the US government has yet to articulate its end goal while the conflict continues to spread to the region and beyond.

In the interview, Trump says he was not looking to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and that he was confident the Strait of Hormuz, the critical channel for oil shipping near Iran, would remain open because Iran’s navy is at the “bottom of the sea.”

Global oil prices have jumped 16% since the war started on Saturday, as the spreading conflict disrupted Middle East supplies.

The national average cost of gas has risen 27 cents since last week to $3.25 per gallon, according to AAA, a U.S. travel organization that tracks fuel prices. The current national average is 15 cents higher than a year ago.

Trump says the costs “haven’t risen very much.”

This is a change in tone for the president, who touted the drop in gas prices in his State of the Union address last month and at a Texas rally focused on energy that took place just hours before the US launched its airstrikes.