Marco Rubio has argued the US is in a “very fortunate” position as fuel prices continue to climb nationwide amid disruption sparked by the US-Israel war on Iran.

With average US fuel prices now approaching $4.50 a gallon – their highest level in four years – the US secretary of state was asked on Tuesday how long Americans should accept them at such levels.

Other countries were suffering “big time”, Rubio replied. The US was “very fortunate” as a net exporter of oil, which is not as reliant as other countries on oil from the Middle East, he said.

“We’ve been insulated to some degree,” Rubio added. “We’re obviously still vulnerable, to some extent, to global prices. But in the end, we’re more insulated than other countries – even though that’s not welcome news to Americans that are paying more at the pump, no doubt about it.

“There are people that we’re predicting would be much higher at this point,” he claimed, “but we’re not taking that for granted”.

Global oil prices have surged since the US and Israel first attacked Iran on 28 February. The strait of Hormuz, which usually carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquid gas supplies, has since been all but closed – sparking vast economic disruption across the world.

Average fuel prices in the US now stand at $4.48 per gallon, according to AAA, frustrating drivers and exacerbating affordability concerns. A year ago, they were just under $3.17.

From the early days of the war, Americans expressed their anger on gas station forecourts as fuel prices increased. “I don’t give a shit about Iran,” Kevin Dass, an underemployed father of two in Detroit, told the Guardian in March. “I don’t want to pay higher gas.”

Rubio claimed that fuel prices would be even higher – about $8 or $9 a gallon, he projected, without citing evidence – if Iran had a nuclear weapon and decided to close the strait of Hormuz. “A nuclear-armed Iran could do whatever the hell they want with the straits, and there’s nothing anyone would be able to do about it,” he said.