President Trump offered two predictions about the war with Iran on Sunday, speaking at his golf resort in Doonbeg, Ireland.
The first was about the end of it. "We'll ultimately get out," he said, "unless we decide to stay and keep the oil like Venezuela." The arrangement in Venezuela, he said, had "paid for the war many times."
The second was about prices. He expects the conflict to end this year, perhaps after November's midterm elections, and when it does, he said, gasoline will "drop like a rock."
Each prediction is familiar on its own. Put side by side, they describe two different wars with two different outcomes at the pump.
What brings the price down
This desk reported on Monday morning that both of Saudi Arabia's routes around the Strait of Hormuz are now compromised: the East-West pipeline shut after drone attacks, and the Bab al-Mandab at the far end of the Red Sea taken by the Houthis. Brent rose toward $108. Diesel in the US is above $6.20 a gallon.
None of that is priced on whether a war has been declared over. It is priced on whether tankers can load and sail. Gasoline falls like a rock when Hormuz reopens, when insurers write cover for the Gulf again at something like normal rates, and when the market believes both will last.
What keeping the oil would require
"Keep the oil like Venezuela" describes something very different from a withdrawal.
Holding oil means holding the fields, the pipelines that move it, the terminals that load it and the water the tankers cross. In Iran, most of that sits on or near the Gulf coast, within range of exactly the drones, missiles and small boats that closed Hormuz in the first place.
An American presence guarding Iranian oil infrastructure would be a standing target for every faction in Iran that opposed it, including the ones this desk described last week as able to break a ceasefire without their own government's knowledge. A market asked to price that would not see the end of risk. It would see risk made permanent and given an address.
Why the two statements do not add up
The low-price outcome needs the strait open, the region calm and the risk premium gone. The keep-the-oil outcome needs a continuing American military presence at the centre of the region's energy infrastructure.
It is possible to have one. It is very hard to have both, because the second guarantees the tension the first requires to disappear.
This is not a small inconsistency in campaign rhetoric. Oil traders, shipping insurers and the governments of the Gulf all have to plan on one version or the other. Last week this desk noted that the market was offered an end date for the war and bought the war instead, pushing prices up rather than down. Sunday's remarks give it a second reason to hesitate: even the end on offer might not be an end.
What to watch
Whether anyone in the administration defines what "keep the oil" would mean in practice: fields, revenue, or a share of exports under some agreement. A revenue arrangement negotiated with a government in Tehran could coexist with lower prices. A physical presence at the fields could not. Until someone says which is meant, the second half of Sunday's forecast is contradicted by the first.
President Trump's remarks at Doonbeg on 13 September 2026, including the quotations about keeping the oil "like Venezuela", the Venezuela arrangement having "paid for the war many times", the expected timing of the war's end, gasoline prices that would "drop like a rock", and Iran "calling constantly", are as reported by Al Arabiya and YourNews on 13 and 14 September. The characterisation of the Venezuela arrangement as a push to take control of about a fifth of Venezuela's reserves is Al Arabiya's. Brent's rise toward $108 on 14 September is as reported by Yahoo Finance, and diesel above $6.20 a gallon as reported by Anadolu Agency the same day. This piece is analysis and opinion.
