U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that Iran is “not in good shape.”
Speaking to reporters before boarding Marine One to travel to Mobile, Alabama, Trump said oil prices would fall once the war with Iran ends.
He also said he would not allow a ban on diesel exports, hours after G7 countries agreed to draw on their emergency reserves of diesel and crude oil.
Trump welcomed the European decision to release diesel from their reserves while downplaying the prospect of a U.S. ban on diesel exports.
Asked whether a U.S. export ban had been ruled out, Trump said, “It really wasn’t actually on the table. But what Europe did was a great thing.”
Iran has presented the United States with seven conditions for starting negotiations, as military and diplomatic options intersect over the future of the confrontation and the nuclear issue.
The United States has also announced an expansion of secondary sanctions that could be imposed on entities and countries maintaining commercial ties with Iran worldwide, as part of its “Economic Outcast” campaign against Tehran. Washington has been significantly intensifying economic pressure on Iran.
Between July 8 and 24, the United States resumed attacks on Iran, while Tehran responded by targeting countries in the region, before talks resumed over safe maritime corridors in the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports along the Strait of Hormuz after renewed confrontations described as the most intense since the ceasefire between the two sides took effect in April.
The war began on February 28, when Israel and the United States attacked Iran. Tehran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, which before the war had been the main maritime route for nearly one-fifth of global energy supplies.
Source: Reuters
