Trump's Iran war lies trigger market swings while media conceals US military failure

By Shabbir Rizvi

The weekend of March 21, coinciding with Eid al-Fitr and Nowruz (Persian New Year), saw strategic Iranian retaliatory strikes against many sites in the Israeli-occupied territories.

On Saturday night, particularly massive destruction occurred in “Arad” and “Dimona”—the latter being the site of the Occupation’s not-so-clandestine nuclear program.

Since the US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran began, US President Donald Trump has claimed Iran’s military has been “degraded” and that the war is “nearly won.” Most media outlets publish these claims largely unchallenged, with only minor pushback later.

Yet Iran has not shown any stoppages within its military doctrine - with senior commanders insisting that they have flipped the script from a “defensive” posture to an offensive one.

Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says there are no negotiations with the US. The proposal that the Americans sent to Iran through Pakistani mediators was rejected by the Iranian side for being impractical. Iran laid out its own set of conditions to end the war that was imposed on it, clearly dealing from a position of strength.

The demands Iran has put forward – as Press TV first reported on Wednesday – include a complete halt to "aggression and assassinations" by the enemy, the establishment of concrete mechanisms to ensure that the war is not reimposed on the Islamic Republic, guaranteed and clearly defined payment of war damages and reparations, the end of the war across all fronts and for all resistance groups involved throughout the region and recognition of Iran's sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz.

A country that has – in Trump’s words – lost its military would not be intent on making demands while simultaneously bombing Israeli-American targets across the region.

The stark contrast demands investigation: clearly, someone is lying. Is it Trump—the con-man turned president, known for swindling and manipulation, a convicted criminal repeatedly mentioned in the Epstein files—or Iran, fighting an existential war and disproving US claims of degradation, controlling escalations and making demands?

The signs point to the obvious. So what are the motives for lying? Is it public opinion? The answer, as usual: follow the money.

Consider Trump’s recent threat against Iranian civilian infrastructure. After staggering Israeli losses in Arad and Dimona, Trump threatened to bomb Iran unless the Strait of Hormuz was reopened for full passage, giving Iran a 48-hour ultimatum.

Iran, controlling escalation and honoring promises, warned that attacking its infrastructure would prompt similar retaliatory strikes on US-Israeli energy hubs in the Persian Gulf, sending market analysts into panic.

The recent crippling of energy exports from the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council has shocked the global market and threatened the petrodollar, as Iran demands that countries wishing to pass through the strategic waterway of the Strait of Hormuz pay in Chinese Yuan, a move towards dedollarization it has been pushing for years.

As the markets opened Monday, Trump completely walked back his threat, while simultaneously lying about “negotiations” with Iran:

“I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS.” [sic]

This five-day window, experts believe, is significant. It aligns with the upcoming weekend, the weekend being a consistent period when Trump has previously initiated adventurous military actions—for example, launching aggression on Iran on February 28th, 2026, orchestrating the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3rd, 2026, and renewing bombing campaigns on Syria on January 10th, 2026.

The entire strategy of lying serves one clear purpose: market manipulation. It is not an indicator of the failure that is the aggression on Iran; it is not a way to rally voters, but rather, it is a way to ensure capital stays on the side of the military folly of the Trump administration and the Zionist regime.

In this latest instance, Trump insists he won’t target infrastructure to rally markets, but within an hour, the Israeli regime announces the targeting of infrastructure anyway.

However, within the announcement of Trump’s successful “negotiations” (that Iran has again denied existed), markets rallied.

Note the order of events as documented by “The Kobeissi Letter:”

“At 7:04 AM ET today, President Trump said “the US and Iran have had productive discussions" to end the Iran War.

By 7:10 AM ET, the S&P 500 surged +240 points, adding +$2 TRILLION in market cap.

27 minutes later, Iran completely denied all of President Trump's claims and said there has been "no contact" with the US.

By 8:00 AM ET. the S&P 500 had fallen -120 points, erasing -$1 trillion in market cap.

That's a $3 TRILLION swing market cap in 56 minutes, just in the S&P 500.”

Trump has used this tactic repeatedly during the ongoing war. For instance, on March 9th, he announced that “the war is almost over”—a claim made on Monday afternoon, conveniently supporting market rallies at the start of the week.

Then, two weeks later, Trump himself said the war was ongoing, as the US military deployed the US Tripoli with at least two thousand marines, signaling a potential land offensive in Iran.

Over several days, these actions caused hundreds of billions of dollars in losses on the US stock market and raised fears of a looming energy crisis as countries prepared for work stoppages and further economic disruption.

This is not Trump’s first instance of market manipulation. He has openly bragged about it. In the midst of another folly - the “tariff war” - Trump bragged about how his tariffs made his inner circle extremely wealthy.

Per Yahoo Finance: “After announcing a 90-day pause Wednesday on his sweeping 'reciprocal tariff' policy on nearly every country—with the exception of China—Trump was excited to take credit for making a buck for his guests at the Oval Office. ’He made $2.5 million today, and he made $900 million! That’s not bad,’ Trump said, referring to financial investor Charles Schwab and Roger Penske, a NASCAR team owner, respectively.”

But Trump is not alone in his market manipulation. Aside from his circle of co-conspirators, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and War Secretary Pete Hegseth, who unflinchingly repeat his long-winded (and frankly pathetic) lies, the key player to amplify his market manipulation is the American media.

When Trump publishes a statement insisting that he is “in talks with Iran,” the mainstream media publishes this immediately, without pushback whatsoever. Or, if there is cause for concern, the issue is raised tucked away in the middle of an article, while the headline that dominates the front page includes the bald-faced lie.

In typical imperialist fashion, the media, in harmony with imperialist ambitions and thus its own survival, echoes the Trumpian lie to rally markets and gain investor confidence.

Take, for example, this CBS headline: “Trump says ultimatum for Iran to reopen Strait of Hormuz postponed amid negotiations.”

CBS, owned by Zionist megasupporter David Ellison and led by Zionist propagandist Bari Weiss, publishes a headline insisting that Iran and the United States are engaging in negotiations, which is completely denied by any official spokesperson within Iran.

The publishing of this headline serves some purposes in this case: One, the US’s war goal: for a Zionist owned and led publication, it is important to curry public favor: the war is going as intended, and the US has control of the escalation ladder, despite the clear walking back of US threats as Iran climbs the ladder.

Two: rally, rally, rally. The energy crisis and its impact on the stock market affect everyone, and despite US corporations' efforts to churn out profits however they can, public outrage is a fact that cannot be denied.

Further into the article, CBS reports Trump’s flimsy words without any pushback: “President Trump said Monday the US is speaking with the 'most respected’ person and the ‘leader’ in Iran, but that it's not the supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei.”

Anyone who is remotely familiar with even the most basic fundamentals of Iranian leadership and state operations can tell you that this would never be the case.

Furthermore, Iranians have published every time they engage in negotiations with the United States, up until the US went back on its word and launched the unprovoked and unjustified war on February 28th.

Since then, Iran has insisted that there are no negotiations, even after multiple instances of the US saying there are, but reality has proven to be on the side of the Iranian word.

It is hardly surprising, given the ownership of the media being aligned with imperialism’s goals, that this passes as “journalism.” The US is locked into a frenzy of lies and manipulation to save its own dwindling economic system, which is plagued by multiple crises from the rise of AI to the overall economic downturn of America’s working class.

To cover its failure, the Trump administration moves to erase reality itself by fabricating unemployment and job-added numbers.

The importance of the market to the Trump administration cannot be overstated. In the midst of an inquiry into the Epstein scandal, where Trump has been accused of rape and even infanticide, Attorney General Pam Bondi deflected Trump’s involvement while touting the success of the DOW Jones. The administration is absolutely dedicated to ensuring the success of the capitalists it defends, and the war against Iran is no exception.

As the futile war goes on and US military failures accumulate, we can expect more lies from Trump to control his slipping grip over the US economy as well as global markets in general.

The question is: how many lies will it take to finally concede that Trump is ultimately a loser of his own creation?

Shabbir Rizvi is an anti-war activist and an editor at Vox Ummah.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir