In a single Monday that financial analysts are already calling one of the most volatile trading sessions in the modern energy market, the price of crude oil surged by 32 per cent, breached $119 per barrel for the first time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and then reversed most of that gain within hours — all in direct response to the public statements of one man. The whiplash between panic and partial relief captured in microcosm the central instability of the conflict now in its tenth day: markets are not responding to underlying supply fundamentals anymore. They are responding to the sentences the President of the United States speaks at a golf club in Florida.
What Trump Said — All of It
The complexity of Monday’s market movement begins with the fact that Trump delivered materially contradictory messages across the same day, and traders had to price both.
Speaking to House Republicans and donors at Trump National Doral Miami, Trump told the assembled lawmakers: “We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short-term excursion.” He described the campaign as something that “had to be done” and said the US was “getting very close to finishing that,” without specifying any timeline. U.S. News & World Report
In a phone interview with CBS News shortly after, Trump portrayed the war as nearly complete: “Together with our Israeli partners, we’re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force. Iran’s drone and missile capability is being utterly demolished. The Navy is gone. It’s all lying at the bottom of the ocean. 46 ships. Can you believe it?” He added that the US had eliminated approximately 80 per cent of Iran’s missile launchers.
Those statements drove a sharp rally in US equities and a sharp drop in crude. Then the same press conference produced a second set of remarks that partially reversed both moves.
Trump added that the United States and Israel had more to do, saying: “We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” and calling for “ultimate victory” against Iran. Asked how he reconciled describing the war as nearly complete with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s characterisation that the strikes were “only just the beginning,” Trump replied: “I think you could say both.”
Pressed by reporters on whether “soon” meant within a week, Trump responded: “No, but I think soon.” Later that evening, on Truth Social, he issued the starkest warning of the day: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far… Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them.”
The Market That Absorbed All of This
After surging 32 per cent overnight to $119 per barrel — the highest since 2022 — the price of US crude oil plunged approximately 5 per cent to around $86 per barrel following Trump’s CBS News interview. Asian markets that had nosedived earlier in the session recovered sharply: South Korea’s Kospi gained 4.8 per cent after losing nearly 6 per cent the previous session; Japan’s Nikkei 225 recovered nearly 2.5 per cent; Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 1.7 per cent. US markets, which had opened steeply lower, closed the session in positive territory. CNBC
By Tuesday morning, March 10, Brent crude was trading in the range of $88 to $91 per barrel — down dramatically from Monday’s intraday peak of $119.50 but still representing an increase of more than 20 per cent compared to its level one week earlier. The partial recovery is real; so is the residual elevation.
What Is Actually Happening at the Strait
The divergence between Trump’s characterisation of the conflict as nearly resolved and the physical reality in the waters between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula is the central tension in every market analysis published on Tuesday.
Iran’s attacks in the Strait of Hormuz have all but stopped tankers from using the shipping lane through which a fifth of the world’s oil is carried. Attacks on merchant ships near the strait have killed at least seven mariners, according to the International Maritime Organization. Approximately 3,200 ships — representing around 4 per cent of global tonnage — are currently idle or stalled within the Persian Gulf. Major carriers including Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd have officially diverted traffic around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10 to 14 days to transit times and approximately $1 million in additional fuel cost per vessel.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guard has issued a formal counter-statement: it will “not allow the export of even one litre of oil from the region to the hostile side and its partners” if US and Israeli attacks on Iran’s infrastructure continue. The IRGC statement directly contradicts Trump’s framing that the physical threat to the strait is already neutralised. CNBC
The Leadership Complication
One development on Monday added a dimension to the conflict’s trajectory that no market model had priced in at the start of the week.
Mojtaba Khamenei — the hard-line 56-year-old cleric and son of the slain supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — was named Iran’s next supreme leader on Monday, becoming only the third person to hold that title in the history of the Islamic Republic. He has close ties to the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, which has been firing missiles and drones at Israel and Gulf Arab states since the conflict began. Thousands poured into central Tehran in a show of allegiance to the new leader, waving flags and shouting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel.”
Trump was asked directly whether installing a new leader from the same regime represented a betrayal of the Iranian protesters he had pledged to support in January. His response: “Will I help them? I’d like to if they can behave, but they’ve been very menacing.” On the question of what would constitute an acceptable end to the war, Trump said Iran must have leaders who do not try to develop a nuclear weapon — adding that the younger Khamenei is “seen as even less compromising than his late father.”
The Human Toll Behind the Price Columns
More than 1,000 people have been killed across the region in the ten days since the conflict began on February 28, with the majority of casualties reported in Iran and Lebanon. The US military has announced another service member’s death, bringing the confirmed American combat death toll to seven. Newly surfaced video appearing to show a US Tomahawk missile striking the area of a girls’ school in Iran where more than 170 people were killed — including many children — was circulating widely on Tuesday. When asked about the video at his press conference, Trump said he had not seen it and suggested, without offering evidence, that the Tomahawk could have been fired by Iran.
Five members of the Iranian women’s football team, in Australia for the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, confirmed to Australian authorities that they wished to remain in the country. The Australian Home Affairs Minister confirmed that humanitarian visas had been granted to the players. The team had not publicly clarified the meaning of their silence during the Iranian national anthem before an earlier match in the tournament. CBT News
The oil price on Tuesday morning is lower than it was on Monday afternoon. Whether it stays there depends on whether the Strait reopens, whether the IRGC’s threat to block all regional oil exports becomes operational, and whether Trump’s prediction of a short-term excursion reflects military intelligence or political preference. Markets, for now, are not certain which it is.
All Trump quotations are sourced directly from NBC News, Time Magazine, The Times of Israel, NBC Washington, and the Boston Herald — all reporting from verified AP, Reuters, and White House pool coverage of Trump’s remarks at Trump National Doral Miami on March 9, 2026, and his subsequent Truth Social post. Oil price figures are sourced from NBC News live updates and The Times of Israel, citing Reuters and AP market data as of March 9–10, 2026. IRGC statements are attributed to Iranian state media via NBC News. Casualty figures are drawn from NBC Washington citing reporting from the region as of March 10, 2026. This article covers an active and rapidly developing conflict; all details are subject to change.
