This week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared that “Operation Epic Fury is concluded,” claiming that the U.S. “achieved the objective of that operation”—even though Iran was still blockading the Strait of Hormuz and firing missiles at ships that tried to traverse it.
The next day (as gas prices soared to fresh highs thanks to oil shortages caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz) the Trump administration somehow got Axios to uncritically report that the U.S. and Iran were close to a “one-page” peace deal to end the conflict. It was a clear effort to try to lower oil prices to give Trump breathing room to figure out how to get out of the mess he created-- the higher gas prices climb, the more backlash he and the GOP get. “The U.S. expects Iranian responses on several key points in the next 48 hours. Nothing has been agreed yet, but the sources said this was the closest the parties had been to an agreement since the war began,” Axios’ Barak Ravid (foolishly) reported.
Gullible commodities traders once again fell for the news, with oil prices dropping considerably after the Axios report came out. Not surprisingly, the Axios reporting fell apart within minutes, after Iran said that the “agreement” Ravid reported was “more a list of American wishes than a reality,” with oil prices rising when investors realized they had again been had.
It’s the same cycle that’s played out multiple times over the last 10 weeks, with Ravid reporting that the war is either over or close to an end, only for that to proven to be false minutes later. “Axios is a tool for White House market manipulation. The Islamic Republic is fully prepared for a potential major attack before Trump’s trip to China,” Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a professor with ties to the Iranian regime, wrote Wednesday in a post on X.
At the end of the day, Trump still has no idea how to end the war. Iran clearly has an upper hand in negotiations with its ability to close the Strait of Hormuz. In fact, any “peace deal” could leave Iran better off than it was before Trump launched this stupid and costly war, as they could have a new revenue stream by charging tolls for boats to traverse the strait.
That outcome would be a political disaster, as Trump would not only have strengthened Iran, but would have permanently increased gas prices as a toll on oil would cause prices to be higher than they were when Hormuz passage was free. “It will take a long time for ship owners and insurance companies to become comfortable with this unusual model, and freight rates and insurance premiums will remain elevated,” Artem Abramov, the head of oil and gas at Rystad Energy, told CBS News. “They’re adding to the cost of oil, and all these costs are being transferred to consumers.”
