Questioning Truth
Adopting the same handle as his now rather redundant X account, @realDonaldTrump shocked markets yesterday using his own social media platform, Truth Social. During Trump 1.0, the legitimacy of a President using an unofficial X, then Twitter, account was questioned. Now under Trump 2.0, it’s seldom questioned when he is the majority shareholder of the entire platform, let alone the holder of an unmonitored account. Regardless, yesterday Trump posted that there had been two days of ‘very good and productive conversations’ with Iran, ‘regarding a complete and total resolution of our hostilities in the Middle East’.
Immediately, the post was read as the end of the war. The Dollar within a handful of seconds lost 1-1.5%, oil shaved up to 20 dollars per barrel at one point and equities rallied higher. However, that move didn’t sustain itself in the shorter run. Taking a closer look, beyond the spelling errors, the only firm commitment amongst Trump’s post was to unwind the threats made towards energy infrastructure that he had previously made on Saturday. Sure, it suggested talks had been ongoing and were productive, but the only tangible outcome claimed and that within Trump’s unilateral remit was to suspend threatened action against Iran’s ‘energy infrastructure for a five-day period’.
Compound with this the fact that during the post Israel was still at that very moment conducting an aerial offensive on Tehran, it appeared the President may have been somewhat alone in his logic. A pull-back in the earlier move followed headlines from the semi-official Iranian news agency, ‘Fars’, claiming Iranian leaders were unaware of such talks. As the day progressed, the President refused to confirm the counterparties present to such talks, limiting the validity of earlier claims. Still, much of that earlier improvement in the risk environment endured to the season’s close due to one key fact: markets now know that the President is feeling the pain shared by the US economy and is, at the very least, open to resolving the conflict with Iran promptly.
Discussion and Analysis by Charles Porter
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