Oil prices dropped on Tuesday after Donald Trump called off a planned attack on Iran. Gulf allies had urged restraint from Washington. This eased fears of a supply crisis.
Oil prices are down after Donald Trump postpones Iran attack
Brent crude futures for July delivery fell 1.84% to $110.25 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate slipped 0.05%, resulting in $108.61 per barrel pricing. The declines pulled back some of the risk premium that had built up over weeks of mounting tension.
Donald Trump broke the news on his Truth Social platform Monday night. “We will NOT be doing the scheduled attack of Iran tomorrow, but have further instructed them to be prepared to go forward with a full, large scale assault of Iran, on a moment’s notice, in the event that an acceptable Deal is not reached,” he wrote. No such attack had been publicly announced before his post.
The president said Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates asked him to hold off. Their message, he explained, was that “a Deal will be made, which will be very acceptable to the United States of America, as well as all Countries in the Middle East, and beyond.” He shared no specifics about what that deal might look like.
Earlier on Monday, Trump kept the pressure on Tehran with a cryptic warning. Iran knows “what’s going to be happening soon,” he told the New York Post. Axios later reported that he was weighing military action after Iran’s latest diplomatic proposal disappointed American negotiators.
All in all, any military strike would have torn up a fragile ceasefire agreed on April 8. That prospect alone had traders bracing for chaos in a region that pumps a huge share of the world’s crude. The Strait of Hormuz remains the single biggest worry. About a fifth of global oil passes through it, and any blockage would rattle economies everywhere.
Originally reported by Devanshi Basu on Mandatory.
