By Emily Russell and Anita Hamilton
President Donald Trump began updating Americans on the progress of the Iran war in an address to the nation Wednesday night.
It has been just one month since the U.S. and Israel first attacked Iran. Trump said they have delivered "swift, decisive, overwhelming victories on the battlefield." Iran's navy and air force is destroyed and its leaders killed, Trump said.
But questions remain around how solid that timeline is, what it means regarding the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and what exactly he might say about U.S. allies in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, who have been reluctant to get directly involved in the conflict.
Here's what Trump might speak on soon:
The Strait of Hormuz Question
What matters most to investors will be what Trump says about when the Strait of Hormuz reopens. The vital waterway moves 20% of the global oil supply, and shipping has slowed to a trickle since the conflict began, raising global oil prices.
"There's only one thing that investors care about: Is the strait reopened or not? Everything else is secondary," Beacon Policy Advisors managing partner Stephen Myrow told Barron's.
The president has given mixed messages on the Strait's reopening as a condition for ending the war. On Wednesday morning he said that the U.S. is "blasting Iran into oblivion" until the strait is "open, free, and clear." That's in contrast with a Tuesday post on Truth Social in which he wrote that countries that can't get jet fuel because of the crucial waterway's effective closure should "go get your own oil."
The NATO Threat
In a Reuters interview posted Wednesday, Trump said that he will also discuss the nation's relationship with its European allies, who have so far resisted his requests for help clearing the Strait of Hormuz for shipping traffic or using their air bases. "I'll be discussing my disgust with NATO," he said.
The president wants to push NATO to commit to giving more resources toward the effort by threatening to leave the alliance if they don't, says Stifel's chief Washington policy strategist Brian Gardner. "We could get more strategic ambiguity," he added.
Earlier this week, Iran's parliament approved a plan to collect tolls on vessels traveling through the waterway, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing Iranian state media. Those tolls could keep oil prices elevated even after the war ends.
What Trump's Speech Means for Investors
In addition to oil futures, which are expected to move on any news that comes out of Trump's speech, Asian markets will also be open and could be an early indication of how U.S. markets will react on Thursday.
Investors are hoping an end to the war is in sight, Stifel's Gardner said. "It leads to a risk-on sentiment. Generally as investors look to Washington they see the rhetoric looking more positive than it was a week or two ago."
As of late Wednesday afternoon, the Dow had risen 3% this week with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq up 4% and 5%, respectively, over the past two days. "Given the selloff of the last couple weeks, any shift in sentiment was going to be received very warmly by the markets," Gardner added.
The U.S. dollar could also be affected by what Trump says tonight. As the broader market has rallied in recent days, the dollar has seen a slight decline. Continued positive sentiment could push it down further.
Despite the anticipation, Beacon's Myrow says he isn't expecting much substantive news to come out of Trump's speech. "He's going to try to continue to try to shape the narrative to counter a lot of the negative reactions about the war."
Write to Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com and Emily Russell at emily.russell@barrons.com.
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
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April 01, 2026 21:06 ET (01:06 GMT)
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