An oil tanker under US military escort at sea. (File photo — Image: US Air Force / Wikimedia Commons — Public domain)President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that the war with Iran could end soon — and predicted that oil prices would fall sharply the moment it does.
"As soon as the war is over — it's going to end very soon, the Iran war — oil is going to drop like a rock, and that's the only thing holding it back," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, sitting alongside Vice President JD Vance.
Trump defended the economic cost of the military campaign, acknowledging public frustration with high fuel prices but arguing the burden was justified. "It's a big price, but actually it's a small price to pay for not letting Iran have a nuclear weapon," he said. "You can't let them have it." He described Iran as the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism and said Washington had no alternative because of the threat posed by Tehran's nuclear program.
The president also criticized European allies for declining to assist the United States during the conflict — a theme he repeated on the campaign trail this week. At a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, on Monday night, he told supporters it was Iran's "dream" for the war to stretch beyond the November midterm elections, and again promised that once the war ends, "oil is going to drop like a rock."
Trump offered no timetable for ending the conflict and did not explain what military or diplomatic development would bring it to a close. His prediction of a sharp fall in oil prices was not accompanied by any detailed assessment of global supply conditions, and analysts note that prices near $110 a barrel reflect not just the fighting but the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz and attacks on energy infrastructure across the region.
The remarks matter well beyond the United States. Energy-importing economies such as India and Bangladesh are acutely exposed to crude prices and to any disruption of shipping through the Persian Gulf — and for American voters heading into the November 3 midterms, the price at the pump has become one of the administration's biggest political liabilities.
For now, the war continues, peace talks remain, in the State Department's own words, "extremely difficult" — and the president is asking voters to believe the end, and cheaper oil, are close.