Gas prices are expected to rise in certain states as early as Tuesday as Canadian crude product imports get hit with duties as part of President Donald Trump’s tariff plan.
The Trump administration implemented 25% tariffs against imports from Canada and Mexico, carving out an exception for Canadian oil products, which are levied at 10%.
The US imports roughly 4 million barrels of oil a day from Canada. The majority is sent via pipelines to the Midwest, Rocky Mountains, and Great Lakes region. New England receives refined products like gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel directly from Canada, meaning fuel prices will likely increase in that region first.
Prices in Maine, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire will start rising as early as Tuesday to sit anywhere between $0.20 and $0.40 per gallon higher by mid-March, according to GasBuddy head of petroleum analysis Patrick De Haan.
Read more: What Trump’s tariffs mean for the economy and your wallet
“That’s only the impact from the tariffs,” De Haan told Yahoo Finance, noting a yearly changeover to a more expensive summer blend could further impact prices.
On Tuesday, the national average price for gasoline hovered around $3.10 per gallon, about the same price as a month ago and $0.25 less than exactly one year ago, according to AAA data.
“I expect that many service stations will be raising their prices $0.15 to $0.25 per gallon,” Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, told Yahoo Finance.
Price increases are already happening along the supply chain. Canada’s largest refinery operator, Irving Oil, raised theirs at 12:01 am on Tuesday, said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis for OPIS, which tracks wholesale data.
“They increased prices substantially by roughly the 10% amount of the tariffs,” Kloza said.
In the case of heavy crude oil imports, Goldman Sachs analysts expect that Canadian companies could partially absorb the duties, given their limited infrastructure for exporting to other markets.
Canada’s producers and US consumers will “share the bulk of the burden because already low Midwestern refinery margins would have limited room to fall further once the tariff is imposed,” Daan Struyven, Goldman Sachs co-head of global commodities research, wrote in early February.
In the medium term, the firm forecasts oil prices could fall because persistent broad tariffs would weigh on global growth and demand. That would affect the price of gas.
On Tuesday oil futures dipped slightly to extend losses from the prior session after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said it will restart some of its curbed production.
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