By Adam Clark and Anita Hamilton

Oil prices fell sharply on Monday after President Donald Trump told reporters that Iran has agreed not to have nuclear weapons. Trump added that the Strait of Hormuz might be jointly controlled by him and the leader of Iran.

"They're not going to have nuclear weapons anymore. They're agreeing to that," Trump said while standing on the tarmac at Palm Beach International Airport in Florida.

Earlier in the day, Trump said that the U.S. and Iran have held talks about bringing an end to fighting in the Middle East. Iran's foreign ministry has denied those talks, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing Iran's state broadcaster IRIB.

Brent crude, the international standard, was down 11% at $100 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark, also fell 10% to $88 a barrel.

Trump said the U.S. and Iran have held "good and productive" conversations about a resolution to hostilities and that he had instructed the Department of War to postpone military strikes against Iranian infrastructure for a five-day period, in a post on Truth Social.

The president also hinted at a lasting agreement for opening the Strait of Hormuz, where around 20% of the world's daily oil production normally passes, which has been largely closed since the start of the Iran conflict.

"The Hormuz Strait will have to be guarded and policed, as necessary, by other Nations who use it -- The United States does not! If asked, we will help these Countries in their Hormuz efforts, but it shouldn't be necessary once Iran's threat is eradicated," Trump wrote.

Trump previously threatened to attack Iranian power plants if the Strait of Hormuz isn't opened within 48 hours, in comments made Saturday evening in the U.S. Iran had said it would retaliate with its own attacks on infrastructure.

In addition, the U.S. has begun releasing strategic oil reserves to make up for some of the around 20 million barrels per day of oil that are blocked at the Strait of Hormuz, Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said at an energy conference in Houston on Monday morning. The U.S. began pumping oil out of reserves on Friday, and Japan has been tapping its reserves as well, though other countries in the consortium haven't done so yet, Wright said at the CERAWeek conference held by S&P Global.

Wright says that the U.S. can release between 1 and 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from the reserves, and the world is likely to be able to release "probably close to 3 million barrels."

Meanwhile, at least 40 energy assets have been severely damaged across nine countries since the Middle East conflict began, International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said. Although the IEA is discussing further releases of oil stocks, such action wouldn't resolve the crisis, Birol said in a conference in Australia on Monday.

Before Trump's announcement, analysts at Goldman Sachs raised their forecasts for the average price of oil this year. They now expect Brent to average $85 a barrel in 2026 from $77 previously, and WTI to average $79 a barrel from $72 previously.

"Due to uncertainty around the duration of the shock and assuming that Hormuz flows remain at 5% through April 10, prices are likely to trend higher over that period until the market gains confidence that a lengthy disruption is unlikely," Goldman Sachs analyst Daan Struyven wrote in a research note.

--Avi Salzman contributed to this article.

Write to Adam Clark at adam.clark@barrons.com and Anita Hamilton at anita.hamilton@barrons.com

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March 23, 2026 11:38 ET (15:38 GMT)

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