Fuel prices could soar, and stay elevated for months. That could make groceries and other shipped goods more expensive. And consumers and businesses, stung by the rising costs, could choose to spend less, constraining economic growth.

燃料价格可能会飙升，并持续数月保持高位。这可能导致食品和其他运输货物的价格上涨。而受到生活成本上涨打击的消费者和企业可能会选择减少开支，从而限制经济增长。

In the eyes of economists, that is the increasingly real and dire picture from the U.S.-led war with Iran, now in its second week. It may be a conflict of President Trump’s making, but it is becoming the world’s latest economic headache, one that has sent foreign leaders scrambling for ways to contain the possible fallout.

在美国领导的对伊战争进入第二周之际，这是经济学家眼中日益真实且严峻的图景。尽管冲突可能是特朗普总统亲手制造的，但它正成为全球最新的经济难题，迫使各国领导人匆忙寻找遏制潜在连锁反应的方法。

At the heart of the panic was a surge in the price of oil, which at one point on Monday shot above $100 a barrel. Because energy is central to the functioning of the global economy, the turbulence prompted heightened fears about a prolonged conflict that could exact a deep financial toll around the world, including on Americans.

恐慌的核心是油价激增，周一油价一度冲破每桶100美元。由于能源是全球经济运作的核心，这种动荡引发了人们对长期冲突的深度担忧，认为这可能给全世界（包括美国人）造成沉重的财务代价。

In response, world leaders convened an emergency meeting on Monday of the Group of 7 countries, where finance ministers considered, yet decided against, tapping their national stores of oil to increase available supply. It was only after Mr. Trump asserted later in the day that the war was nearing its conclusion that oil prices began to calm down again, falling to around $85 a barrel.

作为回应，世界领导人于周一召开了七国集团紧急会议。会上，各国财长考虑了动用国家石油储备以增加供应的方案，但最终决定放弃。直到当天晚些时候，特朗普声称战争已接近尾声，油价才开始回落，跌至每桶85美元左右。

“I knew oil prices would go up if I did this,” Mr. Trump told a news conference in Florida. “They’ve gone up probably less than I thought they’d go up.”

特朗普在佛罗里达州的一次新闻发布会上表示：“我知道这样做会导致油价上涨。但涨幅可能比我想象的要小。”

That fit a pattern for Mr. Trump, who has frequently brushed aside any economic blowback posed by his policy choices, including his military strikes on Iran. Previously, Mr. Trump has even described the sharp turn in gasoline prices as a “very small price to pay” for national security. The comments have offered a stark contrast with the president’s boasts about falling gas prices earlier in his second term, a development that he frequently portrayed as a strong gauge of the nation’s trajectory.

这符合特朗普的一贯风格：他经常对自己的政策选择（包括对伊朗的军事打击）所带来的经济反作用嗤之以鼻。此前，特朗普甚至将汽油价格的急升描述为国家安全的“极小代价”。这些言论与他在第二任期初期吹嘘油价下跌形成鲜明对比，当时他经常将这种下跌描绘成国家走向强盛的重要指标。

But the impact seemed anything but small for Americans. The average price of a gallon of gasoline reached nearly $3.48 nationally on Monday, according to AAA, a 16 percent increase from a week earlier. The surge in energy costs initially spooked financial markets, leading to sharp declines in the S&P 500 and other major stock indexes, which rebounded as the White House looked to tamp down concerns about the oil market.

但对美国人来说，影响绝非微不足道。根据美国汽车协会的数据，周一全美平均汽油价格达到每加仑近3.48美元，较一周前上涨了16%。能源成本的飙升最初惊吓了金融市场，导致标普500和其他主要股指大幅下跌。随后随着白宫试图平息对石油市场的担忧，股市有所回升。

“The White House is in constant coordination with the relevant agencies on this important issue, as it is a top priority to the president,” Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement.

白宫发言人泰勒·罗杰斯在一份声明中表示：“白宫正就这一重要问题与相关机构保持密切配合，因为这是总统的首要任务。”

She described the surge in oil prices as a “short-term change,” adding that it would again “drop dramatically once the objectives of Operation Epic Fury are achieved.”

她将油价飙升描述为“短期波动”，并称一旦“史诗愤怒行动”的目标达成，油价将再次“大幅下降”。

In many ways, the fallout around Iran has been similar to the global panic that greeted the start of Mr. Trump’s trade war nearly a year ago. Then, too, economists warned about looming upheaval, while world leaders panicked over the consequences for their economies. Some of the dire predictions came to pass, jolting consumers and businesses in ways still being felt today.

在许多方面，围绕伊朗局势产生的连锁反应与近一年前特朗普贸易战爆发时的全球恐慌十分相似。当时，经济学家同样警告称动荡即将来临，各国领导人也为其经济后果感到恐慌。而那些严峻的预测中，有些确实成为了现实，给消费者和企业带来了至今仍能感受到的冲击。

Yet Mr. Trump remained undeterred in both cases, forging ahead despite warnings that his strategy could inflict lasting economic damage, perhaps even touching off a global recession.

然而，在这两种情况下，特朗普都毫不动摇。尽管有人警告他的策略可能造成持久的经济损害，甚至引发全球衰退，他依然一意孤行。

“This is a very concerning shock to consumers, which have been a driving force in the economy,” said Tim Mahedy, chief economist at Access/Macro, a research firm, who formerly worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

研究机构Access/Macro的首席经济学家、曾任职于旧金山联邦储备银行的蒂姆·马赫迪表示：“对于一直以来作为经济驱动力的消费者来说，这是一个非常令人担忧的冲击。”

He noted that consumer spending, which drives roughly 70 percent of U.S. economic growth, was the only sector that expanded throughout most of last year. Now, with Americans having run through their savings, Mr. Mahedy said, the energy shock is “really hitting at a bad time.”

他指出，占美国经济增长约70%的消费支出是去年大部分时间里唯一增长的领域。马赫迪表示，现在美国人的储蓄已经耗尽，能源冲击“确实在一个糟糕的时机袭来”。

“I am very concerned this could tip us into a recession if it persists,” he said.

他说：“我非常担心，如果这种情况持续下去，可能会将我们推入经济衰退。”

Exactly how the war will ripple across the global economy may mostly depend on one factor — its duration. That’s because the conflict has obstructed shipping in the Persian Gulf, which has snarled much of the world’s oil and gas. The longer the slowdown, the worse the toll will be, though the administration has signaled it believes shipments could restart soon.

战争将如何波及全球经济，很大程度上取决于一个因素——持续时间。这是因为冲突阻碍了波斯湾的航运，而那里扼守着世界相当一部分石油和天然气的命脉。航运放缓的时间越长，代价就越惨重，尽管政府已发出信号，认为运输可能很快恢复。

If U.S. strikes on Iran conclude in a few weeks, most economists believe that the rise in gas prices and other disruptions may prove short-lived. But that doesn’t mean that the war will be painless, especially for Americans who are already suffering a real pinch at the pump.

如果美国对伊朗的打击在几周内结束，大多数经济学家认为，汽油价格上涨和其他干扰可能是短暂的。但这并不意味着战争是无痛的，尤其是对于那些已经感受到油价压力的美国人来说。

“If $100-per-barrel oil is sustained, you’re going to see the impact most directly in less consumer spending,” said Bernard Yaros, the lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. He added that low-income consumers would shoulder the heaviest burden because energy accounts for so much of their monthly spending.

“如果油价维持在每桶100美元，最直接的影响将是消费支出的减少，”牛津经济研究院美国首席经济学家伯纳德·雅罗斯表示。他还说，低收入消费者将面临最重的负担，因为能源支出占其月度开支的比重极大。

If hostilities continue for many months, however, the damage to the global economy could be more pronounced. Oil could stay above $100 per barrel in a worst-case scenario, carrying severe repercussions that would make goods more expensive and slow global growth, said Gregory Daco, the chief economist at EY-Parthenon.

然而，如果敌对行动持续数月，对全球经济的损害可能会更加显著。EY-Parthenon首席经济学家格雷格·达科表示，在最坏的情况下，油价可能保持在每桶100美元以上，这将产生严重的后果，导致商品涨价并减缓全球增长。

A protracted conflict could cause inflation globally to rise about two percentage points faster than it would have otherwise, he estimated. In the United States, that means inflation could top 4 percent this year. The surge in prices would coincide with a slowdown that could tip off a recession and depress total U.S. output. The nation’s gross domestic product, a measure of that output, would grow only 1.6 percent in 2026, compared with the 2.4 percent originally projected, Mr. Daco found.

据他估算，持久的冲突可能会导致全球通胀率比正常水平高出约两个百分点。在美国，这意味着今年的通胀率可能突破4%。物价飙升将与经济放缓同时发生，这可能引发衰退并压低美国总产出。达科发现，2026年美国国内生产总值将仅增长1.6%，而最初的预测为2.4%。

These new risks have surfaced at a vexing moment for the U.S. economy, which is still growing when prices are high and the labor market is showing new signs of weakness. The competing forces are the result of factors including the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence and Mr. Trump’s policies, including his steep tariffs and mass deportations.

这些新风险出现在美国经济的一个棘手时刻：尽管物价高企，经济仍在增长，但劳动力市场已表现出疲软的新迹象。这些相互冲突的力量是由多种因素造成的，包括人工智能的飞速崛起，以及特朗普的政策，包括高额关税和大规模驱逐出境。

“This administration is a sequence of supply shocks,” Mr. Mahedy said. “This is coming on top of two other very significant supply shocks, tariffs and immigration policy.”

“本届政府就像是一连串的供应冲击，”马赫迪说。“眼前的冲击是叠加在关税和移民政策这两个非常剧烈的供应冲击之上的。”

Despite those warnings, the Trump administration has remained bullish about the pace of the war with Iran. Asked this weekend if he was concerned about the rise in gas prices, Mr. Trump told reporters: “No. This is a short excursion into something that should’ve been done for 47 years. No president had the guts to do it.”

尽管有这些警告，特朗普政府对战争的进程仍保持乐观。本周末，当被问及是否担心汽油价格上涨时，特朗普告诉记者：“不。这只是一次简短的出征，为的是一件本该在47年前就完成的事。以前没有哪位总统有这个胆量去做。”

But Mr. Trump has also not ruled out sending troops into the country, which would mark a dramatic escalation in the fighting. With an ever-shifting definition for what might render the operation a success, the president has taken some steps to insulate Americans from economic fallout.

但特朗普也没有排除向该国派遣地面部队的可能性，这将标志着战斗的剧烈升级。随着对行动“成功”定义的不断变动，总统已采取一些措施来保护美国人免受经济连锁反应的影响。

Last week, the U.S. government said it would offer limited protection and insurance for tankers crossing the Persian Gulf. The Treasury Department began taking steps that could allow for sanctioned Russian oil to be sold to other countries, including India.

上周，美国政府表示将为穿越波斯湾的油轮提供有限的保护和保险。财政部开始采取措施，可能允许被制裁的俄罗斯石油出售给包括印度在内的其他国家。

Lifting those sanctions, which were strengthened recently in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, marked a dramatic turnabout for Mr. Trump, who had previously threatened withering tariffs against countries that purchased Russian energy. It was also an effort to bolster the oil supply, even as the president’s top aides insisted that they would not tap U.S. reserves to ease strains on the market.

取消这些制裁（由于俄罗斯入侵乌克兰，这些制裁近期刚刚得到加强）标志着特朗普态度的戏剧性转变，他此前曾威胁要对购买俄罗斯能源的国家征收惩罚性关税。此举也是为了增加石油供应，尽管总统的高级助手们坚称他们不会动用美国储备来缓解市场压力。