DUBAI/BEIRUT/JERUSALEM – President Donald Trump said the U.S. was going to be hitting Iran “very hard over the next week”, shortly after issuing a partial 30-day waiver for purchases of sanctioned Russian oil, hoping to ease prices fuelled by the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
Prices have been whipsawing on Trump’s comments about the likely duration of the war, which has prompted Iran to attack vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil.
Trump has previously said the war is “complete”, and also promised to guarantee the safety of vessels in the Strait. In a Fox News interview aired on Friday, Trump said the U.S. would escort shipping there “if we needed to”.
Benchmark Brent crude eased about 1% to around $99.50 in European trading, still up almost 40% since the start of the war, with European and Asian shares under pressure.
WAR EXTENDS ACROSS MIDDLE EAST
After nearly two weeks of war, 2,000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, but many also in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line.
U.S. forces have also suffered casualties. The U.S. military confirmed that four of six crew members aboard a refuelling aircraft that crashed in western Iraq were dead.
Iran fired more missiles and drones at Israel, and the Israeli military launched strikes across Tehran and continued to attack the Iranian-allied Hezbollah militia across Lebanon and in the capital Beirut.
Iranian Press TV said a woman had been killed by an airstrike close to a rally in Tehran for Quds (Jerusalem) Day, one of many across Iran in support of Palestinians living in Israeli-occupied territory. Iranian media said President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi had attended the rally, in a gesture of defiance.
Israel’s military said its air force had struck more than 200 targets in western and central Iran over the past day, including ballistic missile launchers, air defence systems and weapons production sites.
The prospect that the jolt to global energy supplies could endure had boosted oil prices about 9% to $100 a barrel on Thursday, helping drive down U.S. stocks.
With gasoline and diesel prices rising at pumps in the United States and around the world, the U.S. on Thursday issued a 30-day license for countries to buy Russian oil and petroleum products currently at sea – where it is not uncommon for consignments to be sold or change their buyer.
The International Energy Agency said on Thursday the war was creating the biggest oil supply disruption in history. Average U.S. retail diesel prices hit $4.89 a gallon on Thursday, the highest since December 2022, data from the motorist association AAA showed.
Trump said the U.S. stood to profit from higher oil prices.
“The United States is the largest Oil Producer in the World, by far, so when oil prices go up, we make a lot of money,” he said on social media on Thursday, adding that the priority was to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
Also casting the disruption in a positive light, his treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, called the rise in oil prices a “temporary disruption that will result in a massive benefit to our nation and economy in the long term”.
IRAN VOWS TO AVENGE STRIKES AND KEEP STRAIT SHUT
In a post on social media, Trump said the U.S. was “totally destroying the terrorist regime of Iran”.
“We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time – Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” Trump said.
“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honor it is to do so!”
The news outlet Axios cited three officials from the Western Group of Seven powers as saying Trump had told G7 leaders in a virtual meeting on Wednesday that Iran was “about to surrender”.
Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, in his first comments on Thursday, vowed to keep the Strait of Hormuz shut and urged neighbouring countries to close U.S. bases on their territory or risk being attacked themselves.
Khamenei’s comments were read out by a television presenter and it was not clear why he had not appeared in person. Iranian officials have said he is lightly wounded; Trump has said he thinks Khamenei is alive but “damaged”.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also held his first press conference on Thursday since the war began, issuing a veiled threat to kill the new supreme leader.
President Emmanuel Macron said one French soldier had been killed and several wounded during an attack in northern Iraq, hours after an Italian base in the same area was attacked. The French soldiers were providing training as part of an international coalition fighting Islamic State militants.
Several homes in a Bedouin Arab town near an air base in northern Israel were heavily damaged overnight. It was not clear whether there had been a direct strike or falling debris from an interception. The injuries were mostly minor.
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; writing by Patricia Zengerle, Lincoln Feast and Kevin Liffey; Editing by William Maclean, Reuters