President Donald Trump said in a press conference on Monday that the war against Iran will end “soon” and that oil prices will also fall.
Trump’s rosy forecast comes after oil prices soared above $100 a barrel over the weekend, roiling global financial markets.
“We are making great progress toward achieving our military goals,” President Trump said on February 28, nine days after launching Israel’s war against Iran.
President Trump, who along with his surrogates has given a series of explanations about the war’s objectives, declined to elaborate on the end goal on Monday, instead touting military successes.
“We have completely destroyed all Iranian forces,” the president said at the Trump National Doral Club near Miami, highlighting the destruction of more than 50 Iranian naval vessels and the destruction of Iran’s air force and air defenses.
“They have no leadership. Everything has been blown away.”
Asked if the war would end this week, Trump answered “no” but added “soon.” He threatened further military action if deemed necessary and said the United States had not yet struck some of Iran’s most sensitive targets, including its power infrastructure.
Earlier on Monday, Iranian officials suggested that oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a key barrier for crude oil shipments, were at risk of attack by Iran. Only a handful of commercial ships are passing through the strait, said Matt Smith, an oil analyst at energy consulting firm Kpler.
Despite those threats, President Trump said the war would make oil supplies safer for the world in the long run and threatened that Iran would be hit even harder if it withheld oil from the market. Most of the oil that moves through the Strait of Hormuz goes to Asia, but the U.S. relies on global supplies, mostly imported from Asia.
“We’re going to hit them so hard it’s going to be impossible for them or anyone else who supports them to take back that part of the world,” Trump said.
He also said the war will end when Iran loses the ability to use weapons against the United States, Israel and other allies for an extended period of time.
Asked by a reporter to explain the difference between his prediction that the war would end quickly and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s recent comments that the war was just beginning, Trump said both could be true.
President Trump said, “This is the beginning of building a new nation.” He pledged to steer the United States away from new and long-term entanglements in the Middle East.
President Trump said he was “disappointed” by Iran’s choice of Mojtaba Khamenei to succeed his father as supreme leader. However, when asked at a press conference, he avoided explicitly saying that he was aiming for an assassination.
President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin early Monday, and Putin reportedly shared proposals for an early end to the war by the United States.
Trump said at a news conference that Putin was “very impressed” with what the United States was doing in Iran.
“This is a trip that a lot of other people wouldn’t do,” Trump said. “This was a military success, the likes of which no one had ever seen before.”
—Spencer Kimball contributed to this report.
