As an investigative journalist, you sometimes ask yourself why you put yourself through all of this. The long nights, bucks - what is that? -, the constant feeling of writing against a wall while smiling, you are fighting alone out there. And then Trump sits in front of the cameras and delivers more contradictions in a few minutes than an entire news archive.
Iran sent a gift, he says. Large, valuable, significant. He will not say what it is, only that it has something to do with oil and gas. At the same time, he says he trusts no one. And exactly that, he says in the next breath, shows him that he is dealing with the right people. Not a single journalist in the room pauses. No news editor rips the page open. The sentence just sits there as if it were normal.
Trump: “They gave us a gift, and the gift arrived today. It was a very large gift, of enormous value.” “It was a very significant prize,” Trump says, adding that it was related to oil and gas.
Then he becomes more specific. If he wanted to take out a power plant, a large, powerful power plant, no one could do anything about it. It is as if they were saying: “Take me. There is nothing more they can do, Iran is completely defeated.” That is the wording. While he says this, negotiations are ongoing. Steve Witkoff is involved, Jared Kushner, Marco Rubio, JD Vance. Trump talks about the other side wanting a deal. And then he casually mentions a conversation with Pete and General Caine. He said the war would be over soon. The response to that was: that would be a shame. Pete did not want it to end so quickly. A sentence that reveals more about the mindset behind closed doors than any official press statement.
Trump: “If I want to take out that power plant, that very large, powerful power plant, they cannot do anything about it. It is as if they are saying: Take me. There is nothing more they can do … They are completely defeated.”
Gifts and rockets
While Washington talks about gifts, rockets are flying. An Iranian ballistic missile with cluster munitions explodes over Lebanon, north of Beirut, in the Keserwan area. A senior military official confirms the impact. The missile was on a western trajectory, the target remains unclear. The material damage is limited, the significance is not. It is the first time in this conflict that an Iranian missile has been intercepted or brought down over Lebanese airspace. How exactly that happened, no one knows. The Lebanese army has no air defense of its own. Israel later simply states that an Iranian missile went down in Beirut.
At the same time, the Israeli military reports twelve attack alerts in a single day. Launches, impacts, interceptions - no longer a single event, but a continuous series that makes any normal daily life and any military planning impossible.
Trump: “I really do not want to say this, but I have to. I said to Pete and General Caine, I think this thing - the war - will be over very soon. They said: Oh, that is a shame. Pete did not want it to be over.”
Then the focus shifts to the water. A Chinese cargo ship passes through a corridor set up by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz, between the islands of Larak and Qeshm. The passage is not free. It is granted in exchange for payment. The ship sails under a Panamanian flag, but belongs to a company from the Chinese province of Anhui. During the transit, it openly transmits the status “China Owner.” It is the first ship of this kind to take this route. The data shows that it departed Iranian waters on Sunday and had left the Gulf again by Monday.
Iran leaves no doubt about what this means. Safe passage is only available to those not classified as adversaries. Ships with connections to India and Pakistan have already used the corridor. Now China follows. This is not a logistical decision. It is a political line, drawn on the water. Those who pass belong. Those who do not, stay out.
What emerges from this can no longer be cleanly categorized. A president who talks about gifts while in the same sentence emphasizing military dominance. Negotiations that are supposedly underway while rockets fly over cities. A war that is said to be close to ending while the impacts increase. And a sea route that is being redrawn while the world simply watches. The words from Washington stand in direct contradiction to what is happening in the region. And it is precisely this contradiction that makes the situation more dangerous than any single rocket.
A trail we have been following since March 10
What everyone is focused on today, we have been following since March 10 - including in the area of insider trading. And there, anomalies are consolidating into indications that can no longer simply be ignored. The price of crude oil moved in the first week of the war in a way that left economists searching for words. The global benchmark price temporarily rose to 119.50 dollars per barrel - an increase of 65 percent compared to the level before the war began. That was the highest level since the Covid pandemic. Then Trump stepped in front of the cameras on Monday afternoon and told CBS that the war was “very finished, pretty much.” The S&P 500 jumped by 0.5 percent within seconds and closed the day up 0.8 percent - the best single day in more than a month. Oil fell below 90 dollars. In the evening, at a press conference around 5:30 p.m., Trump corrected himself: the war was not nearly over, it was just on schedule, and they would continue. The oil price rose again.
See also our article from March 11, 2026: „“200 Million a Day - at the Gas Pumps Alone - We Are Investigating Unusual Market Movements.”
Why do you put yourself through all of this? Because someone has to watch while others look away. Because documenting is not a choice, it is a stance. Because there are people who need help right now - or who have no one to tell their story. And because in the end it is not about career, not about clicks and likes - but about not only showing politicians like this their limits, but also taking them to where they belong. For that, I will gladly give up currywurst and döner.
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Dieses nur scheinbar erratische Horuck-Zurück hat den Sinn, Vermögen in der MAGA-Bagage anzuhäufen. Bei jeder Schwankung verdienen die vorab informierten Gangster. Zigtausende Opfer an Leib und Leben kosten diese Drecksfiguren nur einen hämischen Grinser. Dagegen ist jedes Drogenkartell friedensnobelpreiswürdiger als der orange Mafiakürbis!