Trump Claiming 'We Don't Need A Deal With Iran' Officially Bad For Both Oil Prices And That Elusive Deal With Iran

Initial reports following Democrats' huge midterm win earlier this month made it sound like Donald Trump had lost his will to continue fighting Republicans' war with Iran. Before the midterms, Trump talked constantly about raining down fire from heaven as soon as Republicans won, but his attitude reportedly changed after losing both the House and the Senate. With hopes of a peace deal revived, oil prices fell, but Trump can't stop being Trump. He's since sent oil prices back up after claiming the U.S. doesn't actually need to make a deal with Iran anymore. 

Posting on TruthSocial at about 8:00 a.m., Trump wrote, "We don't need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed. We've got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we've got their Strait! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT." It's been a long time since you could trust anything Trump says, but it sure sounds like his idea of giving up without giving up is for the Navy to continue blockading the Strait of Hormuz, even if it's costing us a fortune. 

The cost of operating that blockade — a blockade that we didn't need before Republicans started this disastrous war, by the way — is reportedly somewhere around $14 billion a year. Of course, what says "Art of the Deal" quite like paying billions for something you used to get for free? That's just Trump's style, baby. But you can also see the appeal of trying to maintain the status quo as long as possible, since actually fixing this mess appears to be more than Republicans can handle, but escalating the violence is now even less practical than it was before. For some reason, the oil traders didn't like that. 

At the time of writing, Brent Crude prices were up 2.6% for the day, rising to $95.10 a barrel. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate is trading at $88.16 a barrel, up 1.9% for the day. Those certainly aren't the highest prices we've seen recently, but pricier oil isn't great news for fuel prices, either. The oil traders definitely don't like hearing Trump say he plans to waste $14 billion a year in taxpayer dollars, just to continue operating the blockade that still won't win the war. 

Still, there may be another issue shaking oil traders' confidence in the likelihood of a peace deal. While Trump isn't known for his grasp of the details, he also does a terrible job of staying focused, and that post about not needing a deal with Iran didn't just talk about Iran. Trump actually started his old-man rantings by saying his main focus between now and January is political retribution:

I have asked Vice President Vance to focus his complete and total attention on the Massive Corruption and Crime taking place in Democrat run Cities and States throughout the U.S. The Blue States, such as Minnesota, California, Illinois, and many more, are all poorly run, corrupt disasters. Billions of Dollars is being stolen each and every month. Our Budget could be quickly BALANCED with the correction of this large scale criminal activity. CORRUPTION is in the Democrat Leadership's blood!

If you've been paying attention to who Trump is and how he operates at any point in the last decade, terrorizing states that didn't vote for him makes way more sense than those wishcasting editorials about how Trump may finally work with Democrats to turn things around. If he's focused on punishing his perceived political enemies, that's time he can't spend focused on negotiating an actual peace deal with Iran. After all, he only has so much time between golfing, taking naps during meetings, and frequent doctor's appointments. Will we see oil cross the $100 mark again in the next few months? That remains to be seen and unfortunately depends on the whims of a man whose brain has almost completely turned to soup.