Since President Donald Trump began U.S. military attacks on Iran on Feb. 28, Iowans have seen average gasoline prices jump from $2.635 for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline to $4.536, according to AAA data. For Iowa farmers, the war has also driven up the cost of the diesel fuel and fertilizer they rely on for food production.
In response to U.S. and Israeli military actions, Iran has blocked ships from traveling through the Strait of Hormuz, a key passageway on the route used to deliver exported goods, and notably oil and natural gas, from the Middle East. This has reduced the supply, and thus increased the price, of farm fertilizer products like urea and the diesel used to operate farm equipment.
“Anybody who farms actively and is out there every day trying to make a go at it, they’re all feeling the same,” Dave Muhlbauer, a family farmer who raises corn, beans, hogs, cattle, and alfalfa, and a member of the Crawford County Board of Supervisors who is active in Democratic Party politics in the state, told the Iowa Independent in an interview. “Everybody’s in the same boat, and you know, people are trying to be as efficient as they can to raise a good crop without going broke.”
Republican majorities in the U.S. House and Senate have repeatedly blocked legislation to direct Trump to remove military forces from hostilities against Iran. The offices of Iowa Republican Sens. Joni Ernst and Chuck Grassley and Reps. Randy Feenstra, Ashley Hinson, Mariannette Miller-Meeks, and Zach Nunn, all of whom voted against such legislation, did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Muhlbauer said the higher cost of fertilizer and fuel has significantly increased operating costs. “We’re seeing a huge hit on our input costs to raise this crop. But to me, we’re getting hit from both ends, with the trade policies and the tariffs,” he said. “We lost a lot of our trade partners, a lot of our fertilizer that came in from Canada here in Iowa. Those challenges and tariffs that our federal legislators in Iowa voted for are directly hurting us farmers. So we’re seeing it on both ends.”
Bereen Wobeter and her husband operate a family farm in Tama County, producing corn, soybeans, hay, and cattle. Even before the latest price spikes, said Wobeter, who is active in the Tama County Democratic Party, she had to get an off-the-farm job to stay afloat. “I would not want to be facing a future in farming now,” she said in a phone interview. “We survived the past, but I’m really looking at the future, and how are farms going to survive in the future? And I see some real problems.”
“When I look at, what are the rules of the game, what is being set up for us to work within — and that, of course, includes a war, and what does the war do, and tariffs, and what does the tariffs do,” Wobeter said, noting that these come as Trump focuses on building a ballroom at the White House and painting the reflecting pool on the National Mall. “So if the lead of the country says that’s what the rules of this game are, and they make literally no sense, how does that impact everything else going down from there? How does a farmer make decisions when the rules of the game are so chaotic and make no sense? Because we can’t operate that way.”
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s biweekly Iowa Production Cost Report, in January 2025, when Trump returned to the White House, the average cost of a gallon of No. 2 Diesel used on farms was $2.93 a gallon. The average cost of a ton of urea used was $487.50, and the average ton of liquid nitrogen cost $352; both are used in fertilizing crops.
For the week ending May 1, 2026, the same quantity of diesel cost $4.29 (up 46%), urea cost $870 (up 78%), and liquid nitrogen cost $592 (up 68%).
“Going into 2026, the outlook wasn’t good for corn and soybean farmer margins, and that was before the Iran War caused steep increases in fertilizer and diesel fuel prices,” Christopher Pudenz, an economist and the economics and research manager at the Iowa Farm Bureau, said in an email. “This is adding to farmers’ planting cost as they work to put this year’s crop in the ground right now.”
Pudenz noted that while most Iowa farmers prebooked their year’s fertilizer at prewar prices, the ones who didn’t would feel the most financial pain.
Trump promised repeatedly during his 2024 campaign that from day one of his second term, he would “end inflation and make America affordable again.”
“My plan will cut energy prices in half or more than that within 12 months of taking office,” he told the Economic Club of New York in September 2024. “Energy is going to bring us back. That means we’re going down and getting gasoline below $2 a gallon, bring down the price of everything from electricity rates to groceries, airfares, and housing costs.”
That has not happened. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, average national gasoline prices have not dropped below $2 in any week since Trump returned to the White House. The lowest price was $2.779 in January.
On March 8, Trump posted on his Truth Social site: “Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for U.S.A., and World, Safety and Peace. ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”
More than two months later, oil prices are even higher.
Fueled by Trump’s tariffs, many of which were ruled illegal by the Supreme Court, and the Iran war, the rate of inflation has continued to rise. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, prices of all goods rose 3.8% between April 2025 and April 2026.
In an emailed statement, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told the Iowa Independent:
“Farmers suffered for years under Joe Biden, who increased the United States’ trade deficit to over $1.2 trillion, raised input costs, and pushed woke DEI agricultural policies. In contrast, President Trump is helping our agriculture industry by negotiating new trade deals, lowering input costs, bolstering the farm safety net, doubling the death tax exemption, ending taxes on rural property loan interest, creating rural opportunity zones, and more. President Trump promised that any economic disruptions as a result of Iran’s actions were temporary – now, the United States’ blockade of Iranian ports has been successful and the Strait of Hormuz is open. In order to ease the impact on American farmers during this period, the administration also authorized the export of fertilizer and its precursors from Venezuela and temporarily waived the Jones Act to help fertilizer flow freely to the United States.”
While a few cargo ships had crossed the strait in recent days, no tankers had done so, the New York Times reported on May 9.
Asked by a reporter on May 13 to what extent he considers the financial situation of Americans during negotiations with Iran, Trump responded: “Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran, they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.”
Wobeter pointed to recent news stories about the Food Bank of Iowa struggling to afford the diesel gas needed to deliver food to people in need: “Everybody is getting hurt by this. And we know that the promises made from the top simply aren’t valid. They’re not truthful. So I just don’t know how you plan through all of that.”