US Politics Newsletter - Trump’s 'little excursion'
By Trevor Hunnicutt
March 12 - Iran is warning that oil could top $200 a barrel as it responds to the U.S. and Israeli strikes by trying to cripple global oil markets. Trump’s promises of a new economic “golden age” are at risk. How much time will “America First” voters give the U.S. president for his detour through Iran?
When the explorer Marco Polo traveled to what’s now the Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz in 13th century Persia, he marveled at the trade-rich waterway but warned about the region’s tricky politics. Today, Donald Trump is getting a lesson in both.
Trump’s joint campaign with Israel to bring Tehran’s rulers to heel, now in its 13th day, didn’t just inject new turbulence into the Middle East. It also threatens to erode one of the central arguments the former real estate developer made as he sought a second presidential term: that he is uniquely qualified to steer the U.S. economy.
Iran’s defiant response to the bombing campaign has included laying mines and targeting oil ships that transit the maritime chokepoint. One by one, the economic accomplishments Trump ticks off in his speeches are growing more out of date.
Stocks have given up the record highs Trump still brags about, and the once-low gasoline prices featured in his State of the Union address two weeks ago are now 22% higher month-over-month, according to AAA, an automotive club.
Even the most ardent supporters of Trump’s Iran strikes must now reckon with a stark reality, at least in the short term: the war has made Americans poorer. For a president clinging to a narrow House of Representatives majority up for grabs in a general election in eight months, that’s a problem.
“Wait ‘til you see the numbers by the end of the year,” Trump said of the jobs market, speaking to Kentucky and Ohio voters on Wednesday. “We did an excursion – do you know what an excursion is, we had to take a little trip – to get rid of some evil, very evil people.” He also predicted that oil prices would be coming down soon, perhaps to settle at even lower long-term levels because of the military operations in Iran.
The pronouncements may be more wishful thinking than a forecast grounded in evidence. While the White House has said that Trump will end the war when the bombing has met his objectives, it’s not clear that he has control of the outcome. U.S. intelligence indicates that Iran's leadership is still largely intact and not at risk of collapse any time soon, my colleagues reported on Wednesday.
All this has sent Trump scrambling for options to cut oil prices, and searching for a new vocabulary to describe an economic “golden age” that seems further off than just a few days ago.
THE VIEW FROM DOHA:
It has played its diplomatic hand well, quietly shaping some of the Trump administration’s biggest foreign policy achievements, from the Gaza deal to agreements aimed at stopping fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It has promised hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in the United States. It even gifted Trump an airplane. But, like its neighbors, the tiny, wealthy Gulf country of Qatar is paying a heavy price for the U.S. president’s Iran war. Iran’s retaliatory strikes have hit Qatar’s territory, including the biggest U.S. base in the Middle East, Al Udeid Air Base. Iran later apologized to “neighboring countries that were affected.” But the instability is only serving to push Doha closer to Washington, just five months after Trump vowed to treat any armed attack on Qatar as a threat to the United States' own security.
WHAT TO WATCH FOR:
March 13: U.S. Vice President JD Vance speaks in Rocky Mount, North Carolina
March 17: Ireland’s prime minister, Micheal Martin, may visit the White House
March 18: Senate confirmation hearing for Trump's homeland security nominee, Markwayne Mullin
March 19: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi expected to visit White House
THE WHO, WHAT AND WHEN:
How the Anthropic-Pentagon dispute over AI safeguards escalated
The 16 US trading partners hit by Trump's '301' probes
Why Gulf fury is aimed at Tehran, not Washington
TOP US POLITICS HEADLINES:
Unity is elusive for House Republicans on key election-year affordability bill
Trump says white South Africans are persecuted; some are returning to a better life
Rising gas prices from Iran war imperil Trump's Republican majority in Congress
Ahead of midterms, Republicans confront cooling support from young men over Trump policies
Exclusive - US intelligence says Iran government is not at risk of collapse, say sources
