President Trump spent the weekend howling about the Supreme Court’s decision on last year’s tariff plan. At the same time, he announced two tariff increases.

And one can expect he will spend much of his State of the Union address this week with more complaints about the Supreme Court and vows to keep boosting tariffs.

Another issue to listen closely to in Trump’s speech  — and then all week, in fact  — is whether a new conflict with Iran is about to erupt.

There’s a whisper number already circulating on crude oil if guns and missiles start to fly: Oil could climb to $100 a barrel.

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That would be up as much as 50% from lows reached in mid-December. And that could push retail gasoline prices well above $3.

Where oil and oil stocks stand now

Light sweet crude oil, the benchmark U.S. crude, is at $66.31 a barrel and up 20% since a Dec. 16 bottom. Its gain in 2026 is about 9%. Brent crude, the global benchmark, has risen nearly 21% since Dec. 16 to $71.50 and is up 17.5% this year.

You’re already seeing those expectations in the price of gasoline.

AAA’s U.S. national price has moved up nearly 3.5% to $2.94 per gallon so far this year. And the price increases one normally sees when refineries convert to make gasoline for summer driving haven’t started yet.

Oil stocks have also been rising as the tensions have grown. Exxon Mobil (XOM) is up 31.5% since mid-December. Chevron (CVX) and the State Street Energy Select Sector exchange-traded fund (XLE) have risen 26%.

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The Iran situation nears a climax

The Iranian situation won’t come to a head before the weekend. Iranian and U.S. negotiators are scheduled to meet Thursday in Geneva, Switzerland. That the talks are still on led to small oil-price declines on Feb. 23

One oil expert believes the talks are “doomed to fail.”

Fereidun Fesharaki, chairman emeritus of FGE NexantECA, a global consulting firm, thinks crude will definitely hit $75-to-$80 a barrel once the shooting starts. And, unlike last summer, when U.S. attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities caused immediate Iranian concessions, he thinks a conflict will last longer.

He sees Iran attacking its Persian Gulf neighbors and, more importantly, blocking the Strait of Hormuz, the key waterway through which all oil produced in the Persian Gulf region must pass to reach global markets.

If that happens, you can expect crude prices to rise at least another $5-to-$10 a barrel, he told Bloomberg News in an interview Monday in Singapore. Prices of $90 to $100 are within reach, he added.

The loss of Iranian oil would be a shock to global oil markets. The country is estimated to produce at least 3.1 million barrels of crude oil per day plus another 1.7 million barrel of related products.

It ranks third in the Persian Gulf region after Saudi Arabia and Iraq, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration and is the largest natural gas producer in the region.

Its oil reserves are the third-largest globally, after Venezuela and Saudi Arabia.

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What could diffuse the situation

But maybe the United States won’t attack Iran, or maybe Iran will back down.

Don’t bet on it, Fesharaki said.

Why? Three reasons:

  • The United States wants Iran to agree to severely limit its nuclear research and processing capabilities to the bare minimum.
  • Israel wants Iran to surrender all its ballistic materials.
  • Israel also wants Iran to stop supporting proxy groups that continue to launch attacks against Israeli cities, military outposts, and the like.

The odds of Iran agreeing to those conditions are just about nil, Fesharaki said. The country’s Shiite-dominated regime would lose its legitimacy. Already, it has ruthlessly put down internal protests, killing thousands of Iranian citizens.

The United States has already moved considerable military equipment and personnel into or near the Persian Gulf.

An aircraft carrier group headed by the USS Abraham Lincoln is already there. A second group headed by the USS Gerald R. Ford was expected to dock at Haifa in Israel on Monday. There are also several groups of destroyers and combat ships in the region, and a base on the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean is being readied for support and to supply fuel to long-range B-2 bombers.

It is possible the United States will launch only a limited attack. A more aggressive campaign to put troops on the ground to defeat and replace the Iranian government already is getting pushback inside the Trump Administration, The Wall Street Journal reported late Monday.

Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has warned against starting a ground war, Axios has reported. “Caine sees the stakes of a major operation in Iran as higher, with a greater risk for entanglement and American casualties,” the news outlet said.

Other officials, including Presidential envoys Steve Witcoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, have counseled patience.

But Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-South Carolina, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are both advocating aggressive action, Axios said.

The investor takeaway

If you’re an investor, the volatile market probably means you should balance your thinking between capturing a war premium and hedging against a diplomatic breakthrough.

If the talks fail and lead to military action, oil prices and oil stocks should rise. They may stay higher if the conflict lasts more than a few days.

At the same time, oil stocks, like Exxon Mobil, Chevron or the XLE exchange-traded fund also would act as hedges.

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