Sheinbaum assures that gasoline in Mexico will not rise despite the war in Iran

Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum assured this Monday that the price of gasoline will not rise in the country thanks to a mechanism established by former president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (2018-2024), amid growing fear that the war in Iran will unleash an energy crisis with a generalized rise in prices. "If the price of gasoline, gasoline production, or imports increases, there is a mechanism through the reduction of IEPS (Special Tax on Production and Services) so that gasoline does not increase in our country," she declared in her daily press conference from Mexico City. The IEPS is the tax applied to fuels and that the Government has used in recent years as a stabilization mechanism, reducing or subsidizing it when international prices skyrocket. Sheinbaum recalled that this mechanism was activated by López Obrador in 2022, when "prices increased due to the war in Ukraine." According to her, this Monday she will meet with officials from the Ministry of Finance to discuss this issue and "if necessary" they will use this protection mechanism to avoid an increase in the price of gasoline. Faced with the escalation of the conflict between the United States and Iran, international concern in the oil market has increased due to export problems from the Persian Gulf, as Iran has imposed a de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the hydrocarbons consumed in the world normally pass. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil surged 12% this Monday, to $101.88 a barrel, as investors prepare for the economic consequences of the war with Iran by the US and Israel. EFE