Donald Trump took a massive risk, according to a new breakdown from The i Paper, when he “gambled everything” in his presidency on one thing, and now, it is a bet that he continues to lose.
In a piece published Sunday, veteran Washington reporter Simon Marks wrote that, like clockwork, Trump has once again “backed down at the last minute” from his threats to carry out enormous strikes against Iran if a peace deal was not reached, this time just days after making the threats in the first place. This time around, Trump claimed, again, that a new deal is coming together, something that most observers might have a harder time believing, given how often he has made such claims.
Marks noted that Trump has seemed to revel in his ability to move markets with his pronouncements about the Iran war, but this time, he argued, his claim is “unlikely to elicit more than a collective shrug by oil traders, let alone any drop in prices for struggling Americans.”
“Traders realized weeks ago that the President’s declarations are not worth the space on Truth Social that they are afforded,” Marks observed.
He further noted the reports suggested that, in fact, Trump’s latest “TACO” was the result of being strong-armed into diplomacy by another country, exposing just how weak he has become.
“In fact, there is no indication that any breakthrough is at hand, or that a deal could emerge ‘rapidly,’ as the President suggested,” Marks continued. “Instead, in a statement issued in Riyadh, the government of Saudi Arabia revealed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had strong-armed the President earlier on Saturday. In what is reported to have been an unusually candid call with Trump, the Crown Prince, known as MBS, ‘stressed the need for the predominance of the language of dialogue to reduce escalation’ – diplomatic-speak for ‘we told the President to knock it off.'”
“Saudi Arabia’s message to Washington is becoming increasingly clear,” Middle East security expert and analyst Danny Citrinowicz wrote in a post to X, highlighted by Marks. “If the United States launches major strikes against Iran’s energy infrastructure, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states will likely bear the immediate consequences.”
Marks argued further that the decision to carry out a war against Iran has caused “only misery” for Trump, and continues to engulf his presidency and tank his approval ratings. A CNN poll recently found that just 28 percent of Americans approve of his handling of the conflict, while 21 percent approve of his handling of the ensuing gas price spikes.
“It has been 17 months since Trump berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office, accusing him of lacking the ability to win his country’s war with Russia,” Marks concluded. “This weekend, Saudi Arabia’s leader delivered exactly the same message to Trump about Iran, with the added potency of it being true.”
