Financial markets rallied, and oil and gas prices fell on hopes of an approaching end to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran, even as strikes in the region continued and Tehran maintained a show of defiance against opening the Strait of Hormuz.
Stock markets in Asia closed higher Wednesday while European markets posted gains in early trading. The price of Brent crude, a global benchmark, dipped below $100 a barrel, down from about $118 a day earlier, and European gas prices fell.
A day earlier, U.S. markets closed higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and Nasdaq composite index all gaining more than 2 percent.
President Donald Trump is set to address the nation Wednesday with an “important update” on Iran, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday, in what is set to be his first prime-time address since the U.S. and Israeli assault on Iran began more than one month ago.
Leavitt did not elaborate on what Trump’s message would be, but he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio spent Tuesday expressing optimism about the United States’ trajectory, after the administration alternated in recent days between saying the war is winding down and threatening to escalate it.
On Tuesday, Trump said that he planned to end the U.S. involvement in Iran within two or three weeks and that he would have “nothing to do” with a long-term effort to secure the Strait of Hormuz, a choke point for 20 percent of the world’s oil that Iran has largely blocked off with threats and attacks on tankers.
“We’ll be leaving very soon,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, responding to questions about the war with Iran. “And if France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, go up through the … Hormuz strait, they’ll go right up there, and they’ll be able to fend for themselves.”
“We’ll have nothing to do with it,” he continued. “What happens in the strait, we’re not going to have anything to do with it.”
Rubio said in a Fox News interview that “we can see the finish line. It’s not tomorrow, but it is coming.”
He said the U.S. goals include destroying Iran’s air force, navy and missile factories and degrading its missile launchers. “We are well on our way to achieving all four of those objectives,” he said, adding it would be done “very soon.”
In a video shared by the White House Tuesday evening, Rubio described the Trump administration’s rationale behind the war, saying Iran was “on the verge” of having “so many missiles and so many drones that no one could do anything about their nuclear weapons program in the future” — a scenario he described as an “intolerable risk.”
“This was our last, best chance to eliminate that conventional threat,” he said. “The president made the right decision to wipe it out now.”
The United States and Israel launched a surprise attack on Iran on Feb. 28, the second major military action by the United States in as many months, following an operation to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Iran’s supreme leader and more than a dozen other leaders were assassinated in a matter of days in what the president said would be a surgical operation.
But in the past month, the toll — in dollars, global economic turmoil and lives — has mounted. Tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz has fallen to a trickle, as the average cost of a gallon of gas in the U.S. has shot past $4. American allies have become exasperated by an out-of-the-blue conflict that is causing economic paroxysms, even as the United States uses their airspace and military bases to launch additional attacks. Thousands of U.S. service members have been sent to the Middle East, and 13 have been killed.
Iran continues to deny Trump’s assertions of progress in negotiations to end the war, with Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi telling Al Jazeera on Tuesday that he has received messages from U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff but that they don’t constitute negotiations: “We do not have any faith that negotiations with the U.S. will yield any results. The trust level is at zero.”
On Wednesday, Ebrahim Azizi, head of the national security commission of the Iranian parliament, said Trump had managed only to change the “maritime regime.”
“The Strait of Hormuz will certainly reopen, but not for you; it will be open for those who comply with the new laws of Iran,” he said in a post on X. “The 47 years of hospitality are over forever.”
Strikes in the region have continued. Qatar’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that it was targeted by three cruise missiles from Iran, including one that hit a an oil tanker in Qatari waters. The crew of 21 people were safe, it said. Kuwait’s international airport was targeted by an Iranian drone attack, the country’s official news agency said, while Saudi Arabia also reported drone attacks.
The U.K. Maritime Trade Operations Center, which monitors shipping activity in the region, said the threat level across the Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman and Arabian Gulf remains critical — its highest level — because of attacks, navigation interference and disruption to facilities. Since March 1, it has reported 26 confirmed attacks or incidents, with traffic through the strait shrinking from 138 vessels per day to five.
The post Markets rally, oil prices fall as Trump prepares to address nation on Iran war appeared first on Washington Post.
