Donald Trump: No Regrets Over Iran Conflict
U.S. President Donald Trump stated in a Fox News interview that he does not believe in the word "regret" and would handle the Iran conflict the same way if given another chance, claiming he has removed Iran's nuclear capabilities.
When asked if the conflict would affect the upcoming midterm elections, he said he could occasionally self-reflect but would still make the same choices. He denied that his supporters are demoralized, stating they are proud to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
He referred to the conflict as "a small conflict" and compared it to the U.S. stock market: stating that when he took office, the index was around 49,000 points, and it has now risen to about 53,000 points, at a historical high, while oil prices have also increased during the same period. He predicted that the conflict would end immediately after the midterm elections.
He claimed that if Iran were allowed to obtain nuclear weapons, they would use them, which would destroy Israel, devastate the Middle East, and impact several U.S. cities. He also accused Tehran of trying to oust him, believing that the Democrats would allow them to effectively possess nuclear weapons.
Since the conflict escalated in February in coordination with Israel, rising oil and gasoline prices have become a pressure point for the Republican election campaign. He made similar statements on Wednesday, indicating that Tehran is attempting to influence the elections that will determine control of Congress.
In market terms, this is a typical case of political statements driving pricing: energy traders are factoring in the duration of the conflict and the risk premium from the Strait of Hormuz into crude oil and gasoline prices, while short sellers are hesitant to significantly adjust supply assumptions; stock funds are treating the narrative of "ending after the elections" as a risk mitigation strategy, buying indices and defense stocks while selling consumer and transportation exposures sensitive to oil prices. Beneficiaries include energy producers with locked-in high oil price profits and the defense order chain, while those under pressure are voters reliant on low oil prices and the ruling party's midterm election prospects.
Source: Public Information
ABAB AI Insight
Donald Trump's approach to Iran is not a one-time escalation but rather a decision chain that connects his first-term withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, maximum pressure, targeted eliminations, and direct military action in his second term, all rejecting the nuclear threshold. He previously disrupted the compliance framework established during the Obama era by exiting the JCPOA, then applied pressure through sanctions and proxy battles, and now he has made the claim that "nuclear capabilities have been removed" into an irreversible political asset, even though public reports indicate that the coordinated actions in February did not primarily target nuclear facilities.
Capital and resource mobilization is proceeding along two parallel lines: one is the military resource deployment to the Middle East, targeting Iranian tankers and regime finances, turning energy export capabilities into negotiation leverage; the other is linking the new stock market highs with the narrative of "immediate end after the elections" domestically, using risk premiums to buy political time. The motivation is not merely battlefield victory but to establish "no nuclear possession" as a non-negotiable red line while pushing the costs of the conflict beyond the election window.
A similar structure was seen before and after the 2003 Iraq War with the "fight first, define victory later" approach, as well as the brief cooling after the U.S.-Iran extreme confrontation from 2019 to 2020. In terms of industry positioning, U.S. policy towards Iran has shifted from sanctions and containment to directly disrupting nuclear and missile production capabilities, with Israel taking on frontline coordination and Gulf oil-producing countries bearing the risks of oil prices and shipping routes. The current strategy is not about expanding occupation but maintaining pricing power and a political calendar through sustained strikes.
The structural judgment reflects a combination of regulatory changes and a shift in pricing power: once war is embedded in the midterm election timeline, ceasefires are no longer determined solely by battlefield attrition but are jointly priced by votes and oil prices. The mechanism is that when the president publicly pins the "post-war conclusion" after the election date, the market must simultaneously trade military risks and political options, with oil prices becoming a voter tax and stock indices serving as narrative hedges, making the conflict itself a deferrable political tool.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
- Once war is tied to ballots, the ceasefire date becomes an options expiration date.
- Oil prices are a voter tax, stock indices are narrative hedges.
- Those who have no regrets are not selling right or wrong, but path dependence.