Oil Drops 4.5% as Trump Cancels Iran Strike
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- Oil futures fell sharply in Monday Asia trading — WTI for September delivery dropped 4.5% to $80.89 per barrel, while Brent for October delivery lost 4.4% to $84.10 per barrel
- Trump said early Sunday he called off a planned Iran strike after requests from Tehran and other Middle Eastern countries, posting on Truth Social that "perimeters of a deal has been agreed to"
- The proposed agreement would include "Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat"
- The conflict began on Feb. 28, and Trump had reportedly been weighing another round of strikes amid fading prospects for a diplomatic resolution
- Iran's acting defense minister Seyyed Majid Ibn Al-Reza called Trump's statements "psychological and cognitive warfare" and said Tehran treats every threat as real
- Fars International news agency, affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, dismissed Trump's demands as a "wish list" in a Telegram post on Sunday
Why it matters: Crude benchmarks shed roughly $3.75 per barrel of geopolitical risk premium in a single Asian session, a sharp repricing that hands consumers and airlines near-term fuel relief — but Iran's official dismissal of Trump's terms as a "wish list" and its defense minister's characterization of the overture as psychological warfare leave the diplomatic floor under this rally visibly thin.
