President Donald Trump’s war with Iran may be winding down — but California drivers are still getting hammered at the pump.
Trump’s historic US-Iran “memorandum of understanding,” aimed at ending the conflict between the longtime foes, has already helped drive gas prices lower across much of America.
But in the Golden State, relief remains nowhere in sight.
At a Mobil station in Needles, California, on the Arizona border Thursday, a gallon of regular gas still cost a staggering $6.79.
Just minutes away across the state line, drivers at an Arco station in Arizona were paying only $4.15 a gallon — a jaw-dropping $2.64 less for the exact same fuel.
The national average sits at $3.90 per gallon.
The Post visited both stations in April and found a similar story: drivers at the Arco in Mohave Valley were paying just $4.09 a gallon, while motorists at the Mobil station a five-minute drive across the Colorado River were shelling out $6.99.
Separated by just 1.8 miles, the two stations underscore the enormous gap between California’s fuel policies and those of its neighbor.
To fill up their tanks, Californians face the highest state gas tax in the nation at 61 cents per gallon, compared with just 18 cents in Arizona.
Drivers are also hit with an additional 34 to 44 cents per gallon in emissions fees and climate-related programs that push fuel costs even higher.
“California drivers are being overtaxed and overregulated at the pump — plain and simple,’’ Rep. Vince Fong (R-Central Valley) previously told The Post.
“Californians can drive just a few miles across the border into Arizona and see gas that’s nearly three dollars cheaper. That’s not a coincidence — that’s a policy failure,” Fong said.
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“Sacramento has created a man-made energy crisis through excessive taxes, mandates, and regulations that are driving up costs and shutting down needed refineries and pipelines,” he said.
“The results of Gavin Newsom’s energy policies are predictable: higher prices for working families.”
At the Needles Mobil station, manager Cody Eggleston, 28, previously told The Post that business dried up after California’s green-energy taxes began driving customers away.
“We used to get a lot of traffic, anybody coming out of California, every single person would stop here,” he said.
Now, even locals who work in Needles — known as the “Gateway to California” — cross into Arizona to fill up.
“The people [who work in Needles] all live in Arizona and we all get our fuel in Arizona,” explained Cody.
Gas prices surged after the Iran conflict erupted on Feb. 28.
But prices have fallen sharply since Trump signed the widely praised agreement between the US and Iran on Wednesday at a gathering in Versailles, France, alongside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other world leaders.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and the prime minister of Pakistan also signed the document.
The deal cleared the way for oil tankers to safely transit the Strait of Hormuz, allowing tens of millions of barrels of previously stranded Gulf oil to reach global markets.
On Thursday, the American Automobile Association reported that California’s average gas price had dropped to $5.64 per gallon, down from $5.80 a week earlier and $6.15 a month ago.
The post Bleak future for California’s struggling drivers revealed — despite relief for rest of America appeared first on New York Post.
