Donald Trump sends mixed signals on plans to end Iran war

Good morning and welcome to White House Watch. It has now been a week and a half since the US and Israel launched air strikes in Iran. As the war rages on, today’s edition looks at:

• Donald Trump’s bid to calm the markets

• Anthropic’s lawsuit against the Pentagon

• Which economies will be hit hardest by the war?

When will the war end?

Donald Trump offered several different answers to that question on Monday, as he sought to calm chaotic trading in the oil market that had sent prices spiralling to their highest point in four years and threatened the global economy.

Trump told CBS News on Monday afternoon that the war was “very complete, pretty much”. Hours later, in remarks at his Doral golf resort near Miami, the president said the war against Iran would end “very soon”, describing the conflict as a “little excursion” that had succeeded “much faster than we thought”.

His comments stood in stark contrast to those of his defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, who said in an interview that aired on Sunday night that the strikes were “only just the beginning”.

Trump’s latest remarks were nevertheless seen as an attempt to assuage investors who have recoiled at the idea of a protracted conflict disrupting global oil markets.

Oil prices jumped about 30 per cent to almost $120 a barrel at the start of trading in Asia on Monday, roiling equity markets and triggering alarm about the impact of the war on the global economy.

The historic surge forced G7 finance ministers to hold an emergency meeting to consider steps to stabilise energy markets, including a possible joint release of petroleum from reserves co-ordinated by the International Energy Agency, the FT first reported late Sunday.

“We’re looking to keep the oil prices down,” Trump said. “They went artificially up because of this excursion.”

But even as Trump’s remarks helped ease oil prices back below $90, the president also sent conflicting signals about when precisely the US would stop attacking Iran and under what conditions — raising yet more questions about his aims and objectives in waging war against Tehran.

In a speech to Republican members of the House of Representatives at Doral, he said that US forces would not “relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated”, and that “we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough”. 

Asked at a subsequent news conference whether he intended the war to end this week, Trump said: “No, but soon. Very soon.”

“We could call it a tremendous success now and leave here . . . or we could go further, and we’re going to go further,” he later added. If Iran “starts up again, they’ll be hit even harder”.

The latest headlines

• Anthropic has sued the Pentagon and other federal agencies over its designation as a “supply chain risk”, after the AI start-up insisted the US military accepted curbs on the use of its technology.

• Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr are backing a new tactical drone company that does business with the Pentagon, marking the latest foray into the military-industrial complex by the US president’s eldest sons.

• The US government has declined to refund tariffs the Supreme Court has ruled illegal, according to people familiar with the matter, as the Trump administration tries to hold on to as much as $150bn in disputed levies.

• The relationship between Donald Trump and Nigel Farage has cooled since 2024, according to people close to the Reform UK leader.

• A Republican-led congressional committee has demanded information from a financial firm linked to the Trump family about its role facilitating the US IPOs of Chinese stocks implicated in pump-and-dump schemes.

What we’re hearing

Soaring petrol prices since the start of the war have undermined Trump’s claims to be tackling an affordability crisis that has dented the US president’s approval ratings and weighed on Republican chances for November’s critical US midterm elections.

But analysts are now warning that war in the Middle East will deliver a bigger blow to European and Asian economies than to the US itself, which will be partly cushioned from the effects thanks to its large domestic energy sector.

“Everyone will be worse off because the fundamentals of this is you have made a key factor of production more expensive,” David Aikman, head of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (Niesr) think-tank, told my colleagues Sam Fleming, Amy Borrett and Myles McCormick. “But it will have an uneven impact across countries.” 

In this fascinating deep dive, Sam, Amy and Myles have unpacked which leading economies will pay the biggest price for the war — and why sustained higher energy prices will drive up inflation, curb household purchasing power and damage GDP growth in countries around the world.

They note that the US has been a net exporter of natural gas since 2017 and of oil since 2020 — meaning its own energy sector benefits from surging prices, even if the average American household will be hit hard by rising petrol costs. 

By contrast, European and Asian economies reliant on energy imports are staring down a much sharper surge in inflation, partly because natural gas prices in those markets are more volatile than in the US and have already jumped — and the fuel is crucial in their domestic energy markets.

Viewpoints

• Trump’s Venezuela strategy has failed in Iran, writes Gideon Rachman.

• America chose this war — and must now choose how to end it, contends Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations.

• Markets suggest the ramifications of the war in Iran are likely to drag on and spread, warns Rana Foroohar.

• Dubai is a house of cards, writes Janan Ganesh, who nevertheless predicts the desert emirate will keep standing.

• Liberals should be less shy about saying what they stand for, says Jemima Kelly.