Spiraling financial chaos may be the only thing that can force the president to step away from this conflict.
Donald Trump at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, March 7, 2026.
(Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images) Donald Trump’s war against Iran is already proving to be a military, diplomatic, environmental and humanitarian disaster. But none of this seems to matter to the president, who has been remarkably complacent and dishonest about the crisis he has created. Last Sunday, in a video on the deaths of American soldiers, Trump said“And unfortunately, there will probably be more [deaths] before it ends. That’s how it is. There will probably be more. Asked if Iran could possibly retaliate by attacking U.S. soil, Trump replied, “I suppose.” He added”As I said, some people will die. When you go to war, some people will die.” Asked about the bombing of an elementary school in Minab that killed at least 165 people, most of them children, Trump simply lied: adage“This was done by Iran.” In fact, all available evidence overwhelmingly points to U.S. culpability in these atrocities.
As a narcissistic authoritarian, Trump is naturally indifferent to the human costs of war. Nor does he show the slightest concern about how his reckless aggression is alienating U.S. allies in the region and around the world. While Iran has proven surprisingly resilient in striking back at U.S. military bases and its allies, Trump has rejected any respect for the rules of war, with terrible strikes on oil depots making the air above Tehran and other cities unbreathable.
But if human misery has no effect on Trump, the economic shock caused by his war is another matter – not because Trump cares about the suffering caused by a floundering economy, but because he understands that economic chaos is a political problem for him. In the past, Trump has shown that while he is happy to ignore Congress or other outside criticism, he does pay attention to the stock market. It was a strong market correction in spring 2025, which initially convinced Trump to tone down his first aggressive push for high tariffs.
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The White House now has good reason to be concerned. On Sunday, the price of crude oil jumped to 110 dollars per barrel (then fell slightly). This is almost 50 percent more than before the war. Analyzing this surge and the sharp decline in stock market futures around the world, The Wall Street Journal argued that the war “triggers the most serious energy crisis since the 1970s and threatens the global economy.”
That’s why, in typical Trump fashion, the president is trying to mitigate the economic impact of the war. In an article published Sunday on Truth Social, he tried to appear blasé about rising oil prices, while writing”Short-term oil prices, which will fall rapidly when the destruction of the Iranian nuclear threat is complete, are a very small price to pay for the United States and the world, security and peace. ONLY PICTURES WILL THINK DIFFERENTLY! President DJT »
It’s hard not to interpret this as a case of whistling in front of the cemetery. Trump knows full well that one of the main reasons he won the 2024 election is that Joe Biden’s presidency was derailed by a cost-of-living crisis, triggered in large part by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Policy reported On Thursday, “White House aides and Cabinet officials are under intense pressure to reverse the surge in energy prices caused by the start of the Middle East war.”
The combination this weekend of a sharp rise in oil prices and a fall in stock market futures justifies the warnings launched Friday by Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister. Addressing the Financial Times On Friday, Kaabi said: “This will bring down the economies of the world. If this war continues for a few weeks, GDP growth around the world will be affected. The price of energy for everyone will increase. There will be shortages of certain products and there will be a chain reaction of factories not being able to supply.”
Certainly, Kaabi does not speak as a disinterested observer. Qatar, like other Gulf states allied with the United States, is extremely vulnerable in the current conflict. Iran, with its considerable stockpiles of drones and missiles, is more than capable of striking neighboring countries’ oil refineries and desalination plants. These attacks could easily bring these countries to their knees and perhaps make them uninhabitable for many residents. Besides oil, countries like Dubai rely heavily on tourism as a source of income and guest workers as a source of labor. Now that these places have become war zones, tourists and workers are fleeing, with no chance of a quick return.
But the very fact that oil-rich monarchies are fragile also means they are likely to be pressure points that could force Trump to change his policies. In fact, this is precisely why Iran is attacking them.
With typical swagger, Trump boasted that he convinced the Gulf States to invest “billions” in the American economy. Like much of what Trump says, these claims have little basis in reality. What is more real is that the personal coffers of Trump and his family have been enriched to the tune of billions thanks to money from the Gulf States.
What would happen if money from the Gulf States suddenly started flowing away from the United States? According to THE Financial Times,
Pressure on Gulf states’ budgets could lead them to review their overseas investments and future commitments as they consider options to ease financial strains caused by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran.
A Gulf official said it could impact everything from investment pledges to foreign states or companies, sports sponsorships, contracts with companies and investors, or stake sales.
An adviser to a Gulf government said the prospect of a review of investments by rich states had caught the attention of the White House. They manage some of the world’s largest and most active sovereign wealth funds, and Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar committed hundreds of billions of dollars to the United States last year after President Donald Trump visited the region.
The notable phrase is “caught the attention of the White House.” The point of advertising this possible change in investment funds is to scare Trump.
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The best-case scenario for ending the war quickly is for Trump to be sufficiently frightened by the bad economic news to change course. Even then, it will be difficult to find an easy exit. The Iranian government, which has twice been humiliated by Trump’s attacks during ongoing negotiations, is clearly in no mood for a ceasefire. Rather, it seems eager to inflict as much damage as possible in order to reestablish respect for its deterrent capacity.
Trump has created a global catastrophe, and it is not clear that he will be able to end this mess. Fear of losing money is a powerful incentive, but perhaps not enough to lead the United States out of the quagmire created by Trump’s imperial hubris.
Support independent journalism that breaks the rules Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding popularity couldn’t have been clearer: rampant corruption and billions of dollars’ worth of personal enrichment during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided solely by his own abandoned sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets.
Today, an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire across the region and Europe. A new “forever war” – with an ever-increasing likelihood of US troops on the ground – could very well be upon us.
As we have seen time and time again, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory justifications for attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are threatened by non-citizens registered to vote. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war.
In these dark times, independent journalism is the only one that can uncover the lies that threaten our republic – and civilians around the world – and shine a light on the truth.
The nation’s experienced team of writers, editors and fact-checkers understand the scale of what we face and the urgency with which we must act. That’s why we publish critical reporting and analysis on the war with Iran, ICE violence at home, new forms of voter suppression emerging in the courts, and much more.
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Damn Lord Jeet Heer is national affairs correspondent for The nation and host of the weekly Nation podcast, Time of the Monsters. He also writes the monthly column “Morbid symptoms.” The author of Art lovers: the adventures of Françoise Mouly in comics with Art Spiegelman (2013) and Sweet Lechery: reviews, essays and profiles (2014), Heer has written for numerous publications, including The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, The American perspective, The guardian, The New RepublicAnd The Boston Globe.
