By Zobi Najeeb — SCN NEWS
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said oil prices driven higher by the war with Iran are unlikely to retreat substantially until after November's U.S. midterm elections, linking relief from one of the conflict's most visible economic consequences to his expectation that Tehran will relent once American voters have gone to the polls.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday before traveling to Dallas for a Republican midterm convention, Trump said he expected oil prices to fall after the election and predicted that the war itself would end immediately afterward because Iran would no longer be able to sustain its position. His remarks came as Brent crude surged back above $100 a barrel amid renewed attacks involving U.S. and Iranian forces and growing fears that disruption to Middle Eastern energy supplies could become more prolonged.
The comments marked a significant shift in the political timeline surrounding a conflict now in its seventh month. Trump had initially described the war as likely to last a matter of weeks, but Wednesday's assessment effectively placed both an end to hostilities and meaningful oil-price relief beyond the November 3 congressional elections. Vice President JD Vance was more cautious about predicting when the conflict would end, telling reporters that Iranian decision-making remained difficult to forecast.
The economic backdrop makes that change consequential. Front-month Brent crude settled Wednesday at $101.21 a barrel, up 3.4%, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate settled at $96.05, after the largest wave of attacks on shipping since the conflict began. Iran said it attacked 10 vessels near the Strait of Hormuz while the United States sank five Iranian oil tankers, adding new pressure to a route that before the war carried roughly one-fifth of global oil and gas supply.
Shipping through Hormuz remains dramatically below normal levels. Reuters reported that flows had recovered to roughly 8 million to 9 million barrels per day in the week before fighting resumed on August 30 but have more recently fallen below 2 million barrels per day. The disruption matters far beyond crude futures because the Gulf remains central to global energy trade, meaning prolonged restrictions can feed into gasoline, diesel, aviation, freight and manufacturing costs across multiple economies.
The pressure is already visible to American consumers. U.S. gasoline is averaging around $4.22 a gallon, while diesel prices are approaching $6 and inventories remain tight. The Energy Information Administration raised its oil-price forecasts on Wednesday as Middle Eastern supply losses accelerated inventory declines, while analysts warned that the market has considerably less capacity to absorb additional disruption than it had when the war began.
That leaves an important distinction between Trump's political forecast and what commodity markets are currently pricing. The president's prediction depends heavily on his assessment that Iran is deliberately attempting to withstand pressure through the U.S. elections and will change course afterward. Market analysts, by contrast, are focused on physical variables: how much oil is actually moving through Hormuz, whether tanker attacks continue, the availability of alternative export routes, remaining inventories and whether violence spreads further into Gulf energy infrastructure.
Those risks widened this week as Iran-backed Houthi forces attacked Saudi energy facilities, raising concern that disruption could spread beyond Iranian supply and threaten infrastructure and shipping routes that have helped compensate for restricted movement through Hormuz. Analysts told Reuters that the combination of reduced inventories, limited spare capacity and millions of barrels of exports already offline has made the global market increasingly vulnerable to another supply shock.
One estimate illustrates the scale of that vulnerability. Vortexa data cited by Reuters indicates that roughly 10 million barrels per day of oil exports — equivalent to about 10% of global oil demand — remain missing because of the Iran war. At the same time, the U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve stands at about 289.7 million barrels, its lowest level since 1982, after releases under both the Biden and Trump administrations intended to cushion consumers from high energy costs.
The economic consequences increasingly intersect with domestic politics. Republicans are preparing to defend narrow congressional majorities in November while voters continue to face elevated fuel and living costs. Trump's Wednesday remarks came as he headed to a Republican convention focused on the midterms, putting the president in the unusual position of telling voters that one of the war's most immediate economic effects may not substantially ease until after they cast their ballots.
Trump has argued that Iran is trying to influence the U.S. elections by prolonging the conflict and predicted Tehran will eventually succumb to economic pressure. Iran's motives cannot be independently established from Trump's assertion, however, and commodity prices are determined by global supply, demand and expectations rather than the U.S. electoral calendar. A post-election decline would therefore depend on what actually changes in the conflict and energy flows, not simply on the completion of voting.
The distinction is particularly important because Brent has already demonstrated how quickly expectations can reverse. The benchmark reached as high as $126.41 in April before falling below $100 as traders became more optimistic that the conflict could remain contained. Wednesday's return above $100 reflected a reassessment of that assumption as tanker attacks resumed and prospects for a durable settlement appeared more distant.
Trump's prediction therefore establishes a clear political marker ahead of November: he expects the conflict and the energy shock associated with it to ease after the midterms. Whether that happens will depend less on the election itself than on events thousands of miles from American polling stations — particularly the security of the Strait of Hormuz, the trajectory of U.S.-Iran hostilities and whether enough Middle Eastern oil can return to world markets to remove the geopolitical premium consumers are now paying.