Investors were late on Sunday bracing themselves for a surge in oil prices as Donald Trump vowed to carry on the US military operation against Iran until all of Washington’s objectives are reached.
Trump’s comments came in a six-minute video posted to his Truth Social platform on Sunday as the US president grappled with the first US casualties of the conflict and offered conflicting messages about the war’s aims.
The US and Israeli attacks — which have hit more than 1,000 targets and killed Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and top military commanders — would “continue until all of our objectives are achieved”, Trump said in the video without offering specific details of what they were.
“They have waged war against civilisation itself,” he said of the Iranian regime.
But Trump warned “there will likely be more” deaths of US soldiers as he argued that Washington’s “actions are right and they are necessary”. Three US troops have been killed and five seriously wounded.
Iran has launched retaliatory strikes on Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The Strait of Hormuz, a vital waterway through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil transits, came to a near standstill as the crisis in the Middle East escalates.
Traders were expecting Brent crude, the international benchmark, to jump as much as 15 per cent from its settlement price on Friday of $72.87 a barrel. Trading begins at 6pm New York time.
Goldman Sachs said in a note to clients on Sunday: “The main transmission channel of the Iran crisis to the global economy and macro markets is its impact on energy markets, with the combination of severity and expected longevity key.”
Trump has offered several reasons for the attacks on Iran, ranging from regime change, keeping Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, protecting Americans and backing Iranian protesters who have sought major changes to their country.
The US president said he had fulfilled his promise to the Iranian people and that the future of their country would be in their hands after Washington made its most significant attempt to overthrow the Islamic regime since it swept to power in a 1979 revolution.
He told Iranians “who yearn for freedom to seize this moment, to be brave, be bold, be heroic, and take back to your country. America is with you. I made a promise to you, and I fulfilled that promise. The rest will be up to you, but we’ll be there to help.”
During the regime’s brutal crackdown on protests throughout Iran in January, Trump had told Iranians in a social media post that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY”, and came close to ordering strikes before holding off.