Trump Under Pressure as Oil Surges on Fears of Prolonged War

U.S. President Donald Trump is coming under increasing international pressure after he pledged in a primetime speech to continue the war on Iran, sparking further turmoil in energy markets, with little sign the Strait of Hormuz will be open soon.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday said Trump’s demands for help reopening the vital waterway through military means are “unrealistic,” calling for consultation with Iran to come up with a solution. The United Arab Emirates is appealing to the United Nations to authorize a range of measures, including force, to get oil and gas flowing through the strait again, with fears growing of a global supply crisis.

In a speech Wednesday night, Trump said the U.S.-Israeli alliance would carry out further operations against Iran “over the next two to three weeks,” repeating a threat “to hit each and every one of their electric-generating plants” if Tehran doesn’t agree to U.S. demands to end the fighting.

The Islamic Republic continued attacks across the Persian Gulf on Thursday and showed little appetite to start talks, let alone concede defeat. The foreign ministry said Iran had received U.S. messages through intermediaries including Pakistan, but that American demands were “maximalist and illogical.”

The back and forth rattled energy markets. Brent crude climbed around 8% to above $109 a barrel. Europe’s diesel futures rose to more than $200 a barrel, the highest level since 2022, as the ongoing war and the effective closure of Hormuz cause fuel shortages.

U.S. Treasury yields rose and global stocks slumped, underscoring concerns about stagflation, or higher inflation and slower economic growth.

Iranian missile and drone attacks were reported by Gulf Arab states overnight and into Thursday. The U.S. embassy in Baghdad warned that Iraqi militias may carry out attacks on central parts of the city in the next two days, including against American citizens.

Israel experienced one of the biggest barrages of Iranian missiles on Wednesday night since the conflict erupted in late February. The U.S. and Israel launched the war by attacking Iran, saying it posed a nuclear threat and that it was necessary to destroy the country’s stockpile of missiles.

Israel said it struck an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ground forces base and mobile command post on Wednesday, as well as a ballistic-missile storage site in the north-western city of Tabriz.

Trump’s speech came as he tries to convince Americans of the merits of the war and that surging gasoline prices — which have climbed above $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 — will go down quickly once fighting stops.

Ahead of Trump’s address, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian took the unusual step of writing a letter to Americans, published on X. He argued his country had no enmity with the U.S. and warned that “continuing along the path of confrontation is more costly and futile than ever before.”

He said strikes on Iranian infrastructure — including on energy and industrial sites — directly targeted the Iranian people.

The Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally flows, has been largely closed since the start of hostilities, presenting a major economic pain point for Trump and the world. Brent crude, an international oil benchmark, has surged about 60% since the war began.

Trump, while insisting the energy shock will ease, did not lay out a plan for how the U.S. would convince Iran to let traffic resume through the strait. He exhorted allies who rely on Middle Eastern oil supplies to “take care of that passage.”

“They must grab it and cherish it,” he said.

On Thursday, the U.K. is chairing a virtual meeting with foreign ministers from around 35 countries including the United Arab Emirates, France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan. They will discuss a plan to restore freedom of navigation in the strait. The U.S. was not due to attend.

The countries convened by Britain will cover three tracks: diplomatic, economic and military, according to people familiar with the matter, who were granted anonymity discussing information that has not been made public.

The focus for now will be on diplomacy, coordinating efforts by nations with channels into Tehran, the people said. Should that prove unsuccessful, the coalition would consider economic measures targeting Iran’s oil and shipping industries, they added.

The UAE’s ambassador to the U.N. asked the council to take “immediate action” in order to “ensure the safe and secure navigation and navigational rights and freedoms in and around the Strait of Hormuz.”

The resolution would not create a new U.N. mission. But U.N. approval could offer a measure of diplomatic support to Gulf nations if they decided to get involved in military operations or a naval task force to help free up the strait from Iranian control.

A prolonged conflict carries political risks for Trump and his Republican Party ahead of the November midterm election that will determine control of Congress. Polls show significant numbers of Americans already disapprove of the conflict.

Trump on Wednesday urged Americans to “keep this conflict in perspective,” saying that U.S. involvement in World War I, World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and the Iraq War all lasted for years, while the Iran conflict had only lasted just over a month.

Trump and his advisers have given mixed messages about the war. He has said it would end quickly and that a peace deal is imminent, only to make more threats against Iran.

More than 5,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, almost three-quarters of them in Iran, according to government organizations and the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Just over 1,300 people have been killed in Lebanon, where Israel is fighting a parallel war with Iran-allied Hezbollah.

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—With assistance from Thomas Hall, Ania Nussbaum and Magdalena Del Valle.

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