March 23, 2026
Shortly after the close of the U.S. stock market on Friday, President Donald J. Trump appeared to try to address the losses it had sustained since his February 28 attack on Iran by posting that the war was “winding down.” This reassurance appeared designed to calm market fears over the weekend.
But then, at 7:44 Saturday evening, Trump posted: “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP”
Aside from the fact that attacking civilian infrastructure is a war crime, this threat against Middle East oil infrastructure made the market teeter again, especially after Iran threatened to strike power plants in Israel and other Gulf states.
Then, at 7:23 this morning, Trump posted: “I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP”
The five-day period in which Trump promised to hold off on this particular threat—the war itself continues—coincides with the days the stock market is open.
According to The Kobeissi Letter, which analyzes the stock market, the S&P 500 surged upward by 240 points. The price of Brent crude oil dropped to $96 a barrel.
Then Iran denied Trump’s claims and said its leaders had had “no direct or indirect contact” with Trump’s people. Iran’s foreign ministry suggested Trump was trying “to reduce energy prices and to buy time for implementing his military plans.” It said that countries in the region had approached Iran to begin negotiations and that “our response to all of them is clear: we are not the party that started this war, and all such requests should be directed to Washington.”
The S&P fell 120 points and the price of Brent crude rose to about $100 a barrel.
“What is happening here?” wrote Adam Kobeissi about the stock market in his newsletter.
The answer to which social media posters jumped was market manipulation. Economist Paul Krugman suggested the same in a post today, noting that someone who had insider knowledge “could have sold a bunch of crude oil futures, at very high prices, Brent was over $112 over the weekend, then bought them back immediately after Trump’s announcement of triumphal progress, but before the Iranians said that is not happening. And you could have turned a very, very nice, very large profit.”
Indeed, by the end of the day, reporters like Yun Li at CNBC noted that about fifteen minutes before Trump’s announcement there had been a sudden and sharp jump in S&P 500 futures and oil futures.
Krugman had other observations as well, though. Trump threatened to “commit a massive war crime” by striking civilian energy facilities and “must be looking for a way out.” Krugman noted that there is no apparent reason for Iranian leaders to be making a deal right now: it seems pretty clear that protracting the war constitutes winning in the metric of humiliating the U.S.
Krugman goes on to make a major point: “Think about how much America’s position in the world has been weakened, not just by apparent failure to subdue a fourth-rate power, but by the fact that everybody now knows that you cannot trust anything, cannot trust any promises the United States makes, you cannot count on the United States carrying through with promises, with threats, not just promises, but threats are also incredible in the sense of not being all credible, and that the default assumption should be that anything that this administration says is a lie.”
Trump doubled down on his post this morning when he talked to reporters at Palm Beach International Airport, seeming to see an off-ramp from the conflict. He claimed that his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is speaking with “a top person” in Iran, “the man who, I believe, is the most respected and the leader…not the supreme leader…but the people that seem to be running [Iran].”
Barak Ravid of Axios later reported that Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner—both freelancers who have financial ties to the Middle East—rather than the U.S. secretary of state, Marco Rubio, have sent messages to the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, through Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey, where intermediaries are trying to set up a call between U.S. and Iranian negotiators. Ghalibaf is a close associate of Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.
Trump seemed to consider that plan a done deal and said the U.S. and Iranian negotiators would talk today by phone. He continued: “We’ll at some point very soon meet. We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we’re gonna end up with settling this, otherwise we just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
Kaitlan Collins of CNN asked Trump, “You’ve said there’s many points of agreement with Iran right now. Can you give us a few of them?” He answered, “Many. Like fifteen points. Fifteen points.”
Collins followed up: “That Iran has said yes to?”
Trump replied: “Well, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon. That’s number one. That’s number one, two, and three. They will never have a nuclear weapon.”
Collins asked: “They’ve said yes to that?”
Trump replied: “They’ve agreed to that.”
When another reporter asked if Iran has agreed “to no enrichment whatsoever, even for medical purposes, civilian purposes,” Trump answered: “They have.”
Then Collins asked, “What about the Strait of Hormuz? Who’s going to be in control of that?” Trump answered: “That’ll be opened very soon if this works.” To questions of how soon, he responded, “Immediately.”
Asked who would control the strait, he answered: “Uhhhhh, [it’ll] be jointly controlled.”
“By who?” Collins asked.
“Maybe me. Maybe me,” Trump said. Not the United States, or an international coalition, but “[m]e and the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is…. And there’ll also be… a very serious form of regime change. Now in all fairness, everybody’s been killed from the regime…. But we’re dealing with some people that I find to be very reasonable, very solid. The people within know who they are. They’re very respected, and maybe one of them will be exactly what we’re looking for. Look at Venezuela, how well that’s working out. We are doing so well in Venezuela, with oil and with the relationship between the president-elect and us. And maybe we find someone like that in Iran.”
Today, at the Palm Beach airport, a reporter asked Trump: “If the war is ending, do you still need $200 billion?” Trump answered: “We, ah, it’s always nice to have. It’s always nice to have. It’s a very inflamed world.”
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Notes:
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c75kl47zez3o
https://www.axios.com/2026/03/23/trump-suspends-iran-strikes-hormuz-negotiations
Bluesky:
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Section 4, 25th Amendment
I heard from a European friend this evening asking me to explain what is going on, and I just laughed. And felt like crying, but mostly laughed because what could I tell her that would make any sense out of non-sense? There is no rational explanation for anything that comes out of Mr Trump's mouth. Is it all lies? All fantasy? All mental illness? Not being a psychiatrist, I can't come up with a diagnosis, but it is clear to everyone that the man who is supposedly in charge of our country has no grasp on reality.