Trump says Iran war is over as U.S. revokes oil license

President Donald Trump said at the NATO summit in Ankara that the Iran conflict was “over” and called dealing with Tehran “a waste of time” after the United States revoked a license allowing Iran to sell oil and ordered transactions wound down by July 17.

The move narrowed one of the last visible off-ramps in a conflict that had already been fraying. The interim memorandum of understanding that helped halt the fighting had been signed under Pakistani mediation and was meant to create a 60-day window for a permanent deal. Indirect U.S.-Iran talks in Qatar ended last week without progress, and the truce had already been weakened by limited strikes exchanged in late June.

Military pressure escalated again on Tuesday, before Trump’s comments in Turkey, when the United States launched another wave of strikes after attacks on tankers in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran responded by targeting U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait, underscoring how quickly the confrontation has spread beyond its original battlefield and into the Gulf security perimeter that protects global oil flows.

The latest measures also tightened pressure on Iran’s energy sector. The U.S. Treasury revoked a general license issued on June 22 that had allowed Iranian crude and petrochemical exports through August 21, and instead gave Iran until July 17 to wind down transactions. That left only a short runway for traders, shippers and insurers still exposed to Iranian cargoes, while raising the risk of fresh disruption in a waterway that carries a major share of world petroleum shipments.

The conflict began on Feb. 28, when Trump announced “major combat operations” against Iran after massive joint U.S.-Israeli strikes. ABC News reported that the strikes hit military, government and infrastructure sites, while USNI News described the initial phase as Operation Epic Fury, with early strikes aimed at military facilities, air defenses, missile and drone launch sites and airfields.

The latest spillover reached Kuwait on July 8, when the Kuwaiti military said it intercepted two ballistic missiles and 13 drones. Kuwait said there were no injuries, but shrapnel damaged some power lines. The sequence of strikes, reprisals and shifting deadlines has left Washington with fewer diplomatic channels and a larger regional footprint, even as the rhetoric from the White House suggests the war has already been declared closed.