Washington: US President Donald Trump has said the war with Iran will end very soon and predicted a sharp fall in global oil prices once the conflict is over, while insisting that Tehran would never be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.
Speaking at a Republican campaign rally in San Antonio, Texas, Trump defended the American military operation against Iran and said his administration was determined to eliminate the nuclear threat posed by Tehran.
“And just as I promised, I am ensuring that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. They will never. They know that,” Trump told supporters.
He suggested that American involvement in the conflict was approaching its conclusion.
“And we’ll be out of there soon, and you watch those oil prices come down like a rock and watch everything — everything else is coming down,” he said.
The President argued that previous administrations had failed to confront Iran’s nuclear ambitions and that military action had become necessary.
“That should have been done by past presidents for many years. It should have been done, but nobody wanted to take it on,” he said.
Trump acknowledged that the conflict had affected oil prices but maintained that the increase was smaller than many had anticipated.
He said some had expected prices to rise threefold, fourfold or even fivefold because of the military operation.
At a separate White House event, Trump repeated his prediction that the conflict would end soon.
“Oil will drop like a rock as soon as we’re finished with the war, which will be very soon,” he said.
“It’s going to be very soon. One way or the other, we’ll be finished with it,” he added.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also linked rising borrowing costs and inflation to the conflict in the Middle East.
“What we are seeing is headline inflation is high because of the energy shock,” Bessent said.
He argued that underlying inflation had eased and predicted that energy supplies would improve once the conflict ended.
“So once we get on the other side of this Iran conflict, energy markets are going to be well supplied, and we will move down towards the Fed’s target and mortgage rates and the 10-year will come back down,” he said.
Trump also referred to diplomatic contacts involving his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who has been involved in negotiations concerning Iran.
“He’s working on the Iran deal and doing very well,” Trump said.
However, the President indicated that he remained reluctant to accept an agreement merely to bring the confrontation to an end.
“I think the deal isn’t really something that I want to do, but they’re willing to offer us anything to stop, and we definitely, they will never have a nuclear weapon,” he said.
(IANS)
