The war with Iran is going to “very quickly” be over, U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday, and he expects the price of oil to drop dramatically “after” the war.
Trump thanked reporters before heading to San Antonio, Texas for a Republican campaign gathering, in which he stated the U.S. removed Iran’s nuclear energy. He said he believed removing Iran’s nuclear arsenal was “indispensable to stave off what he called ‘potentially serious consequences.
Trump also touched on oil prices, indicating that “oil prices will come tumbling down” if there was an end to the conflict. His comments followed a clash in the Middle East that has again created global disruptions in oil markets and pushed prices back above $100 a barrel on Wednesday, after the International Energy Agency (IEA) decided to speed up oil stock release.
Trump also stated that his country’s oil minister resigned due to pressure being placed on him by the war. The minister told him the Iranians didn’t have any “oil” or “economy”, he said.
Iranian officials have dismissed such a line of thought. Mohajerani, the government’s spokesperson, stated in a press release that Trump’s concerns with the resignation “were to disguise his own shortcomings”. Resigning was not demonstrative of weakness, but rather of flexibility in Iran’s political system,” she said.
Iran’s state media had previously announced that Paknejad had stepped down due to “personal issues. President Masoud Pezeshkian accepted his resignation and appointed the head of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Hamid Bovard, as the acting Head of the Iranian Oil Ministry.
The conflicting statements coincide with the pressure that is being placed on the world’s oil supplies by the US-Iran conflict. Oil prices are still high because of shipping fears in the Strait of Hormuz, and as countries work to ramp up emergency oil supplies, they are attempting to relieve markets.