There are two versions of how the Iran conflict ends. Donald Trump shared one with G7 leaders in a private virtual meeting. Iran's new supreme leader shared the other one on state television.
They could not be more different - and oil markets, which briefly touched $120 per barrel before settling near $95, are currently trying to figure out which version is true.
Here is everything that happened, and why it matters for every market from Dalal Street to Wall Street.
According to Axios, three G7 countries briefed on the call Trump told fellow world leaders that Iran is about to surrender. He described Operation Epic Fury - the joint U.S.-Israeli military campaign now in its second week - as having eliminated a major threat, telling allies he had "got rid of a cancer that was threatening us all."
Trump told G7 leaders that Iran's leadership structure had been so severely disrupted that no senior officials remained with the authority to formally announce a surrender. He described the key question as one of timing, adding that the U.S. needs to finish the job to prevent another war with Iran in the future.
The message, as received by allied leaders, was broadly optimistic. The operation is succeeding. The end is approaching. The cancer has been removed.
A day after Trump's private G7 briefing, Iran's new supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei - installed following the assassination of Ali Khamenei in the opening strikes of the conflict - issued his first public statement on state television. He vowed that Iran would continue fighting and avenge Iranian martyrs. He warned that Iran would expand the conflict into new fronts. He pledged to maintain pressure around the Strait of Hormuz. This is not the language of a government preparing to surrender. It is the language of a government telling its population - and the world - that the war continues on Iran's terms, not Washington's.
The gap between Trump's private assessment to G7 allies and Khamenei's public statement the following day is the single most important piece of geopolitical information in the current crisis. Both cannot be simultaneously true. Either Trump is reading the situation correctly and Khamenei's defiance is performative - the last public posturing before a quiet capitulation - or Trump is telling allies what he wants to believe and the war has a considerably longer runway than Washington is projecting.
Oil markets, sitting at $95 per barrel rather than the $120 panic high, appear to be pricing something in between - a significant probability of resolution but far from certainty. The details emerging from the call paint a picture of allied friction rather than coordinated strategy. G7 leaders urged Trump to end the conflict quickly, warning about economic fallout and the risks posed by Hormuz disruptions. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly warned Washington not to allow Moscow to exploit the crisis - a concern that became immediately relevant when the U.S. Treasury announced a temporary one-month waiver allowing sanctioned Russian oil already in transit to be purchased, an emergency measure aimed at stabilising global energy markets.
The Russian angle is deeply uncomfortable for European leaders. Every week the Hormuz closure continues and oil stays above $90 per barrel, Vladimir Putin's Russia - a major oil exporter now selling into a supply-squeezed global market at elevated prices - benefits financially. The war that Washington launched to eliminate what Trump called a cancer is simultaneously providing economic oxygen to the country European leaders consider their most immediate strategic threat.
The call also surfaced tension between Washington and London. Trump reportedly criticised Keir Starmer directly for initially refusing to allow the U.S. to use British military bases for strikes on Iran before later reversing that decision. A private rebuke of an ally in a multilateral call is not a minor diplomatic moment. It signals that the coalition supporting Operation Epic Fury is less cohesive than public statements suggest.
For Indian markets, which fell 471 Nifty points and 1,412 Sensex points on Friday as the same geopolitical uncertainty weighed on sentiment, the G7 call offers neither clear relief nor clear escalation. Trump thinks it is ending. Khamenei says it is not. G7 allies are worried enough to warn about Russia and economic fallout. The U.S. Treasury just gave a Russian oil waiver that would have been unthinkable three weeks ago.
This article is for informational purposes only.
