U.S. inflation surged in April, pushed higher by the effects of the war in Iran

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As April got underway, Donald Trump delivered an address to the nation about the war in Iran and took a moment to comment on the state of the economy. The president said Americans are currently enjoying “the strongest” economic conditions “in history” (a spectacularly wrong assertion) and that there’s “no inflation.” As the month came to an end, Peter Navarro, the White House’s top trade adviser, similarly boasted on Fox Business, “Inflation is going down.”

It would’ve been great if these claims were true, but as is too often the case with the White House’s economic claims, they were not.

Last week, the public confronted a fresh round of discouraging news, as the Commerce Department showed a jump in the core personal consumption expenditures price index, which reached its highest level in nearly three years. On Tuesday morning, conditions went from bad to worse. CNBC reported:

Prices that consumers pay for a wide range of goods and services increased at a faster-than-expected pace in April, raising further concerns about the inflationary impact on the U.S. economy.

The consumer price index rose at a seasonally adjusted 0.6% for the month, putting the one-year pace at 3.8%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday.

The data, which was even worse than expected, showed consumer prices in the U.S. rising at the fastest rate since May 2023. As a related report in The New York Times noted, the price increases were “driven largely by energy prices,” which climbed as a result of the unnecessary war in Iran.