Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Sunday that U.S. gasoline prices may not fall back below $3 a gallon until 2027, pushing out the Trump administration's recovery timeline as the war with Iran grinds into its eighth week and the Strait of Hormuz remains partially shut.

Wright's forecast on CNN's "State of the Union" sets a slower clock than the one Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent offered investors just days earlier, and it lands as the second round of U.S.-Iran talks scheduled to begin in Islamabad teeters over a weekend clash at sea. A pre-war pump price is now a political deadline for Republicans heading into the midterms, and Wright conceded the administration does not know when it will arrive.

What Wright said

Asked by CNN's Jake Tapper when Americans should expect gas under $3, Wright replied, "I don't know, that could happen later this year, that might not happen until next year, but prices have likely peaked." He added that "under $3 a gallon is pretty tremendous in inflation-adjusted terms. We had that in the Trump administration, but we hadn't seen that in inflation-adjusted terms for quite a long time. We'll get back there for sure."

Wright tied any relief directly to an end of the fighting. "Certainly with a resolution of this conflict, energy prices will go down," he said.

The Bessent gap

The energy secretary's hedge contrasts with Bessent, who told audiences last week he was "optimistic" that $3 gas would return "sometime between June 20 and September 20," contingent on how talks with Tehran played out, the Washington Examiner reported. Wright offered no such window, and as of Sunday those negotiations had stalled.

Regular unleaded averaged $2.90 a gallon on Feb. 1, according to Gasbuddy. Since the war began on Feb. 28, the AAA national average has climbed to about $4.04. Iran has largely locked up the Strait of Hormuz, a channel that carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil, since fighting broke out.

Talks wobble

U.S. and Iranian envoys were set to meet again Monday in Islamabad, Pakistan, with oil prices tumbling late last week after both sides said the strait was opening for commerce. That opening frayed over the weekend. Iran fired on two tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, and U.S. forces seized an Iranian-flagged vessel accused of violating the blockade on Iranian ports. Iranian state media said shortly afterward that the second round of talks was no longer happening.

The political stakes for the White House are measurable. A CBS News/YouGov poll this month found that 51 percent of adults said gasoline prices have been either "difficult" or a "financial hardship" for family finances, Axios reported. March consumer prices rose 3.3 percent from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, with gasoline up 21.2 percent from February and accounting for nearly three-quarters of the monthly gain.

The counterpoint

The Washington Examiner, reporting from the right, framed Wright's answer as a downbeat outlier against Bessent's sunnier forecast and noted the lack of a firm timeline. Administration defenders argue the comparison with a pre-war baseline is misleading: Wright said sub-$3 pump prices are "pretty tremendous" in inflation-adjusted terms and described the current disruption as historically large, an argument the Axios account reported him making on CNN. No Democratic lawmaker or left-leaning outlet is represented in Sunday's reporting on Wright's remarks, leaving the opposition case to be made through the numbers rather than through a named critic.

U.S. envoys are still scheduled to sit down with their Iranian counterparts in Islamabad on Monday, if the second round survives the weekend's shooting. Until it does, Wright's 2027 caveat is the administration's operating assumption at the pump.