Donald Trump flies aboard Air Force One from Florida back to Washington and answers questions. The war is ongoing. Oil prices are rising. And Trump says: “Prices will tumble once it is over. And it will be over pretty quickly.” You either believe him or you do not. Neither changes the fact that Japan is now releasing 80 million barrels of oil reserves - about one fifth of its total stockpiles. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi announced it last week. Japan imports more than 90 percent of its crude oil from the Middle East, almost all of it through the Strait of Hormuz. If the strait remains closed, the problem will begin to be felt within a few weeks.
Trump said he is asking other countries to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz “Because it is their area … you could even argue that maybe we should not be there at all because we do not need it. We have a lot of oil.”
Trump has now asked “about seven countries” to join a coalition that would monitor the Strait of Hormuz. According to Trump, China gets 90 percent of its oil through this strait. The United States barely needs it. Still, Trump says, the U.S. will help. He named China, France, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom. Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, had initially refused to put British aircraft carriers at risk. Trump remembered that. “We will remember,” he said - those who come and those who do not.
This is foreign policy in 2026. No treaty, no negotiation. A threat from an airplane.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is investigating a missile strike on an elementary school in Iran that occurred in the first hours of the war. More than 165 people were killed, many of them children. Satellite images, expert analyses, a U.S. official and information released by the U.S. military suggest that it was an American strike. Outdated intelligence likely played a role, according to a U.S. official and another informed person. Trump says: “We do not know. It is being investigated.”
In Dubai, a drone struck a fuel tank at the airport - one of the busiest airports in the world, in the middle of the city. No injuries were reported by authorities. The fire was extinguished. The airport continues to operate. People get used to it.
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi still sees no reason to speak with American negotiators. Trump says Iran is not yet ready to negotiate - but “pretty close.” He adds that he does not even know who he would be negotiating with because much of Iran’s leadership has been killed. He says this without pause. Without hesitation. As if it were a negotiating position and not a description of war.
Then there is also the question of the media. Trump writes from Air Force One on social networks that he is “so thrilled” that the federal communications authority, the FCC, is reviewing the broadcast licenses of television networks he has criticized for their Middle East coverage. FCC chairman Brendan Carr had already urged networks on Saturday to “correct course before their license renewals come up.” Trump claims without evidence that U.S. television networks are working with Iran to spread “false reports.” “That is very dangerous for our country,” he says.
A photo of Trump attending a memorial service for six soldiers killed in Kuwait was used by a political action committee connected to him for fundraising appeals. When asked whether that was appropriate, Trump says: “Yes.” He had not seen it, someone else had posted it. But: “There is nobody who is better to the military than me.” With Trump, even death becomes a fundraising appeal - and while an investigation begins, the oil reserves flow, and the president flies home.
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