If you think the price of gas is bad now ...

Think gas prices are high now? Wait a few weeks. Last month experts were predicting they’d get as high as $1.40 per litre during summer months.

That was before Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Iran nuclear agreement yesterday. Exiting the deal, Trump said he will reimpose economic sanctions on the country and any firms that deal with it. That will force countries that import Iranian oil to drastically reduce or even eliminate their imports, which will certainly hurt OPEC’s biggest producer. But it will also reduce the world’s oil supply, and that will lead to higher prices for crude, and ultimately gas from your neighbourhood pump. The move will hit Americans just as hard as Canadians, but Trump isn’t overly concerned with the economic hardship he will bring to his own people, apparently.

There are other factors at play, experts say. Increased demand for U.S. imports. The weak Canadian dollar. A $13 increase in the price of a barrel of oil and an extra three or four cents per litre for refineries. Gas companies, which have a cost margin of about 12 cents a per litre, aren’t passing on any breaks to consumers.

Collusion? Price-gouging? Maybe. But no one has been able to prove that yet, and many capable sources have tried.

Rob Ford says if he’s elected he’ll kill cap-and-trade, which could reduce gas prices by about 4 cents per litre. That’s a drop in the bucket especially if Trump’s Iran antics drive prices up to or even past the $1.50 level.

Don’t expect much help from Ford or anyone else. Governments rely on the tax revenue gas delivers, and that’s not going to change.

External factors beyond our control are the main thing driving gas prices these days. All we can do is adapt, and brush off those bikes.