A Greater Conflict Between the US and Iran – Accelerating Forward

At the end of March, on the last trading day, early in the morning Trump handed the market a gift—did you believe it?
Trump’s statements aren’t really about stepping out; they’re a clear goal of resetting. When he realizes that physical reality (a strait blockade) can’t be resolved within the scheduled timeframe, the thing he’s best at is changing the definition of “victory.”
Trump’s previous 15-point plan was just a dead plan—diplomatically, it amounts to letting Iran politically commit suicide. In a trader’s eyes, that so-called 15-point ceasefire plan isn’t meant to get a deal; it’s only an extreme pricing-anchor. What he’s really doing is managing expectations: since he can’t force the strait open within 4–6 weeks through military power, he continues to give the global market the illusion of a problem that’s being solved. He releases peace signals through the media to prevent oil prices from completely running wild, and by reducing market volatility via public opinion, he offsets the impact on the economy—hedging the inflation pressure caused by a physical disruption in crude supply. He’s only using talk and negotiations** to keep market liquidity up, to secure political and time windows for the next** more extreme war. He’s skilled at the information battle—on that front, he’s in a Schrödinger-like state.
Trump’s sense of powerlessness is also reflected in how he guides the market. When he can say that the war can end with the strait closed, he’s essentially acknowledging that, under land-power pressure, the United States has temporarily lost the physical ability to control the world’s most important energy chokepoint.

**Now there has also been a major structural shift: it’s a transfer of energy pricing power. Physical laws don’t lie. The ships you burn won’t be restored, and the severed supply chains won’t automatically reconnect just because of Trump’s words. The strait won’t be opened because Trump steps out, and besides, he can’t step out.
This morning, the bombing of Qatar’s oil tankers didn’t matter to the market, but when Trump put out the news, the market got highly excited. The infrastructure of war attacks (refineries, oil tankers, ports, pharmaceutical plants, aluminum plants, etc.) is a physically irreversible process. Hatred has already entered a self-sustaining cycle—this is common sense, not something that can be solved with slogans. And once the impact of the slogans keeps being gradually dulled by the market, it’s about time for the next round of fighting.
****Trump is using false peace to steady the market, and Iran is using real supply disruptions to hit back at Trump. An inevitable continued escalation of the main line is certain, because in the laws of nature there is no stable intermediate state.