Trump Pushes for Speedy End to Iran War

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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Luke Vargas (0:34)

President Trump tells aides that he wants a speedy end to the Iran War. Plus, a look at the traitors making big money on last-minute bets tied to White House policy.

Alexander Osipovich (0:43)

During an otherwise quiet hour in the oil futures market, there was more than $760 million worth of trading in Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures.

Luke Vargas (0:55)

And after unearthing hundreds of millions of carats, Rio Tinto exits the diamond business. It's Thursday, March 26th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM Edition of What's News, the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Nearly a month into the war with Iran, President Trump has privately told advisors that he believes the conflict is in its final stages and hopes for a diplomatic settlement to bring it to an end within weeks.

SPEAKER_2 (1:23)

We're winning so big, nobody's ever seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran. And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it, because they figure they'll be killed by their own people. They're also afraid they'll be killed by us.

Luke Vargas (1:40)

That was Trump speaking at an event in Washington last night. We report that while there are no easy options for ending the war and the president still has objectives like securing US access to some of Iran's oil, Trump's attention has at times shifted. In discussions with political allies, Trump has begun focusing on November's midterms, tightening voter eligibility rules and addressing long lines at airports. Close advisors also want him to prioritize the most pressing issue facing voters, concerns about the cost of living which have been exacerbated by the war. Meanwhile, facing the risk of tariffs on top of war-related costs, EU lawmakers are today voting on whether to back a trade deal reached with the US last year. Our Kim McCrail is in Brussels.

Kim McCrail (2:24)

The deal that was reached last year is where the US agreed to cap tariffs for most EU exports to the US at 15%.

And this vote is important because Europeans are worried that if they don't cut their tariffs, the US could renege on its pledge to keep most of its tariffs on the EU at 15% or lower. And actually that's something that Trump's ambassador to the EU warned was a possibility during an interview he did with The Wall Street Journal earlier this week.

Luke Vargas (2:49)

To cushion against changes in US policy, EU lawmakers have made the bloc's tariff cuts conditional on Washington fulfilling its side of the bargain. And while President Trump's tariff decisions, military strikes and sudden policy shifts over the past year have often moved markets, our reporting shows that there have been several occasions in which unusual trades have hit the tape just ahead of major announcements. You may have heard on the show about one trader who made more than $400,000 in profits after placing a series of bets on Polymarket about the timing of Nicolas Maduro losing power in Venezuela, with the last one coming just an hour before Trump announced his capture. And as journal reporter Alexander Osipovich explains, that's not the only unusual trade.

Alexander Osipovich (3:33)

On Monday morning, Donald Trump posted on Truth Social that he was postponing his threatened attacks on Iranian energy plants. This caused a wild shift in the market. It caused stock futures to go up, caused oil futures to drop precipitously. And then we discovered, not too long afterwards, that there had been a flurry of trading activity just about 15 minutes before Trump sent that market moving post. During another wise quiet hour in the oil futures market, there was more than $760 million worth of trading in Brent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures. And there was no real catalyst for this to happen. This led immediately to speculation that somebody had traded ahead of Trump's announcement.

Luke Vargas (4:17)

Democratic lawmakers have called for an investigation into the trades, saying they resemble corruption. The White House has denied that its officials were involved in any sort of illegal insider trading and called such speculation baseless. A Sharp Slowdown in Immigration is reshaping some of America's biggest cities. New census figures show that the LA, San Diego, and Miami areas all shrank in the year through June 2025, and half of the 50 largest metro areas lost more people than they gained from the rest of the US. Strong growth is continuing elsewhere, though, with several mid-sized and smaller cities across the Carolinas, Texas, and Mountain West growing at four times the national rate or more. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s pick for Surgeon General has hit a standstill in her confirmation process. We report that healthy food advocate Dr. Casey Means currently lacks enough GOP support to advance out of the Senate's Health Committee and faces additional hurdles in the full Senate. However, the White House hasn't dropped her nomination, given her support from Kennedy as well as other members of the Make America Healthy Again movement, with an official saying that skeptical Republicans could still be brought around. And the US. Postal Service is turning to fuel surcharges for the first time in an effort to try and stabilize its budget amid soaring fuel and transport costs. The 8% fee will apply to packages only and kicks in next month. Both FedEx and UPS, which have imposed surcharges for years, dramatically raised theirs in recent weeks amid turmoil in the Middle East. Coming up, how the shipping industry is managing one of the biggest crises since the pandemic. And a diamond mine once preferred by Harry Winston loses its luster after the break.