Former Trump BLS nominee EJ Antoni says the war in Iran “stands, unfortunately, to upend the president's economic agenda”
Antoni: “There are all kinds of supply chain disruptions that we are seeing right now that are going to have big, big ramifications in the months to come, and all of them are pointing to higher consumer prices”
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From the April 14, 2026, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
E.J. ANTONI (GUEST): We were, I think, really set up for success this year, and now, unfortunately, if you look at, for example, the big tax returns that folks are getting today, as a result of the Big Beautiful Bill, tax returns are up about 11% compared to the previous year. That's a significant jump, but everyone's just having to spend it on gasoline.
In other words, consumers are not able to actually purchase more stuff. They're not able to save and invest at all because these bigger refunds are just going to things like higher fuel bills. So, this war really has been an absolute curveball to the economy. I think it stands, unfortunately, to upend the president's economic agenda.
You know, it's not as if low energy prices were the only thing we had going for us. That's not what I'm trying to say here. I know some folks have misconstrued it to be that, but that's not it. The point is that low gas prices were necessary, but not sufficient for the economic turnaround that I think the president was setting us up for. It was one of the big cornerstones, and if you pull that away, right, the whole building starts to come down. It's not as if everything else has gone wrong, it's not as if the president hasn't made a lot of great progress in other areas, but again, these high energy prices that we're seeing today are doing a tremendous amount of damage and are going to continue doing a tremendous amount of damage as long as the war goes on.
And that's just the energy side. You know, Steve, you have all kinds of knock-on effects that are full-blown crises right now but we're just not being affected by them yet. Fertilizer might be the best example.
Yes, we have an oil crisis today, and it's very easy for people to see that because the price at the pump has gone up so dramatically, but we also have a fertilizer crisis today that consumers are not very — they're just not aware of it, frankly, because it hasn't hit their pocketbooks yet but it is hitting farmers right now and it is going to push up food prices in the autumn and that's when people are really going to feel the fertilizer crisis that at that point it will have begun many months before.
You're seeing helium, that's going to be a big problem with producing semiconductors. You're seeing sulfuric acid, that's a big problem in terms of now mining and processing copper. There are all kinds of supply chain disruptions that we are seeing right now that are going to have big, big ramifications in the months to come, and all of them are pointing to higher consumer prices.
So whereas before the war it was like we were finally turning the corner on inflation, and where we were not only going to see inflation rates come down, but a lot of actual prices come down, and consumers were going to start paying less for things, and now it's as if all of that has reversed and now we're going to see more inflation later this year as a result of what's happening today in the Middle East.
STEVE BANNON (HOST): So, your advice to the president right now, we kind of are where we are, right? And I think more constructive action has been taken with this blockade as a forcing function, certainly forced the Chinese to stop playing games and they're coming over to the Oval Office today. We'll be covering that, here, obviously, live.
What would be your recommendation — given where we are, given the progress we were making last year, the big beautiful bill, everything's kind of falling in place. Scott [Bessent] would second that. Give me a minute or two before we go to break, and I want to hold you for just a minute or two after that. What would be your recommendation to Scott Bessent, the president right now?
ANTONI: I think you need to, as best you can, return things to the status quo ante, as fast as possible. Now look, my expertise is not in geopolitics or the military or anything like that, so I'm not sure exactly how you get there.
You know, my guess is it would be something like just call the conflict a win, bring everybody home, get all our assets out of the region, etc. And if Iran wants to toll the strait, it amounts to only about $1 per barrel of oil, given the size of those super tankers, so it's not really that big of an impact.
You're going to see, if you do that, and if you get crude flowing again, and LNG flowing again, I think you're going to see prices come back down relatively quickly, not quite to where they were before the war, but close to it, and that will help alleviate a lot of these supply concerns, and then all of the knock-on effects, whether it's fertilizer or any other byproducts from energy, you're going to see big improvements there relatively quickly as well.
It's gonna take weeks, and in some cases months, to sort everything out, but you'll be making a step in the right direction. And the reason I say, Steve, that you're not going to have prices go quite as low as they were before the conflict is because at this point you have had energy infrastructure either damaged or destroyed.
As just one example, a gas field in Qatar is going to take between 3 and 5 years to get it back up to pre-war production levels given all the damage that's happened thus far. So I think best case scenario, again, is you get everybody home ASAP, the strait gets reopened, even if it's got a toll. The toll's not that big of a deal. And then at that point, you're going to get prices back down again, not quite to where they were before the war, but somewhere close to it.
And again, I just want to reiterate, look, I'm not a geopolitical expert. I'm not an expert on anything military or anything like that. I'm just looking at this strictly as an economist, strictly from a market perspective.
BANNON: You just made my blood run cold with the let them do the tolls.