Oil prices PLUMMET after Trump signs Iran agreement

Joining us now to break down the current state of the American economy is former White House economic advisor Steve Moore. It's great to see you again, Steve. I'd like to start, of course, with the latest. What has come out from this Iran deal? Though the Strait of Hormuz is scheduled to reopen, there have been supply and demand disruptions around the world. It collides with a busy summer travel season here in the U.S., raising the demand for gas, the national average being just over $4 as of today. When do you realistically expect prices to go down? When can we see a meaningful dip? Well, great to be with you, Didi. And that is the question I don't think anybody knows, not the experts in the energy market. And you could tell that the energy, the oil price fell pretty substantially when this deal was originally announced. But the last 24 hours or so, it's migrated up a little bit because there's some skepticism about whether this deal will stick. But I want to remind your viewers that just four or five months ago, at the beginning of this year, we had an oil price, a gas price at the pump of well less than $3.50, in some states, less than $2 a gallon. So there's a lot of room for that gas price to come down. But it really just depends on whether or not the deal is real, whether it can stick, and whether investors believe that they can get that oil through the straits of Hormuz so we can get those lower gas prices. But nobody right now really knows the answer to that. Absolutely. And you're right. We did see some relief a bit there. Hopefully, we will continue to go in that direction. How does this impact your outlook on inflation? Again, that's a tough question, Didi. You're asking me tough ones today because the inflation rate is so tied to the oil price. So if we get the oil price down to keep it $70 or lower, then that will mean inflation will come down. By the way, the other thing that's happening today, as you know, is the Fed had a meeting today to determine what they're going to do out of interest rates. They didn't tell us too much. But I think they're watching very closely at the Fed, Didi, what is happening with that oil price. It is the single most important economic statistic right now for where inflation is headed. Here is President Donald Trump today talking about the Iran conflict and the impact on the economy. Before I let you go, take a listen to this. I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. It never went down. They didn't like it. The people, you know, the stock market is more brilliant than anybody there is, including the people on this stage other than me, of course. Very quick final thoughts, Steve. Critics say the only reason why the bombs have stopped is because President Trump needs lower gas prices for the midterms. Your response, your final thought. Yeah, he does need those, you know, not just Donald Trump, but the Republicans in Congress need that lower gas price. You know, and if we can get that gas price down to below 350 a gallon, which I think is very plausible by the end of the summer, then, you know, Republicans could easily, you know, retain the House and Senate. But if we're still paying four dollars a gallon, people are going to be angry when they go to the polls. So I think you're asking the right questions. We just don't know the answer right now about where that gas price is headed. But I'm going to make a bet that we're going to see them drifting down over the next couple of months. Yeah, 350, quite an improvement. Former White House economic advisor Steve Moore, thank you for joining us tonight on the National News Desk. Thank you, Didi. After decades of the Iranian regime terrorizing the world and pursuing nuclear capabilities, this deal offers the best chance in years to reset the security landscape perhaps of the Middle East. Right now, the first phase of that agreement is already underway after President Trump signed the Memorandum of Understanding at the Palace of Versailles in France. That 14 point framework calls for an immediate end to hostilities, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and a process aimed at permanently ending Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Every administration for decades has sought to get Iran to relinquish its nuclear ambitions, but the threat only got bigger. The words got bigger and bigger and stronger and bigger and nothing ever happened. And Iran got stronger and tougher. If we didn't blow them up the first time and then blow out those weapons, they would have been unstoppable. This should have done what I'm doing and what I did should have been done years ago. Mark Boyle joining us now from the live desk with more on this. Good morning to you, Mark. You know, this is really a historic opportunity and perhaps the most significant diplomatic breakthrough in that region in years, as we know, really peace through strength, as President Trump has said. Yeah, we've heard that time and time again. This is a new chapter, a new opportunity to start. We'll see how this all holds together, though, Jan, after months and months of fighting and weeks of speculation on whether this deal would get done at all. The White House delivered, and this video posted on social media overnight showing the president right here signing and then holding up that memorandum of understanding for all to see this happened at the Palace of Versailles right outside of Paris. Now, at the same time, leaders in Iran also signed the deal, putting the agreement with the United States officially in motion. The president says the finer details of the deal will be implemented over the next few months. And as for right now, though, part of the U.S. military will stay in place. Now, new this morning, we're hearing from the secretary of war, Pete Hegseth. But first, we want you to hear from President Trump on the deal. It's a good question. We haven't thought of it. We're really probably a while. It's a good place to stay. The question was, how long will you leave the military in the Gulf? I would say a little while. See how it all goes. I think it's going to go well. And what President Trump has been clear about from the beginning and the War Department is clear about is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Full stop, cannot have a nuclear weapon. Now, let's go through the details of the agreement. A lot of information coming at you the past 24 hours. Number one, ending the war on all fronts. That includes Lebanon. Iran can't buy or develop a nuclear weapon. Reopening the Strait of Hormuz, that's going to get the oil flowing and hopefully cheaper gas for you at the pump, one of the main ones, allowing Iran to sell oil and sanction relief and economic aid, some of those high points in this deal. So all eyes now essentially on Iran as the world watches to see if they can hold up their end of the deal. We'll track that for you. Breaking news out of the Middle East as it happens this morning at the Live Desk. This morning, markets around the world surging. Oil prices continue falling. Crude oil prices did drop more than two percent overnight, now trading below $75 a barrel, which is not far from what it was before the conflict began. The stock market has surged to record highs, picking up thousands of points over the last short period of time, thousands of points. And oil is dropping like it has never dropped before. If we didn't do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years. You would never have the Hormuz Strait open. You would never have success. Your market would have, instead of going up at levels that nobody's ever seen before, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before, maybe except for 1929 or whatever. And speaking of the Strait of Hormuz, over the next 60 days, Iran's going to work with the U.S. and regional allies to facilitate the safe and toll-free passage of commercial ships and tankers. There's also a growing expectation that this is going to spark a major energy boom. A new report from the International Energy Agency suggests the global oil market could soon swing from shortage to surplus, with supply exceeding demand by more than five million barrels a day. And that shift would certainly put additional pressure to lower those energy prices. In the report, the IEA stated if the deal holds, exports and production from the Gulf should see a gradual recovery. This may provide a welcome respite to the market and an opportunity to replenish depleted inventories or to build new strategic reserves.