Trump keeps saying an Iran deal is close. Markets keep believing it

President Donald Trump this week said a sweeping peace deal with Iran could be signed very soon, echoing dozens of similar claims he has made over nearly three months.

The latest example may not resonate with the average listener — after all, no deal has emerged following any of Trump’s dozens of claims so far. But despite the lack of follow-through, markets continue to react to the president’s repeated promises.

Trump has signaled or stated outright more than 30 times that a deal is nearly at hand, according to a CNBC review of the president’s social media posts and public remarks.

Stocks and oil markets, which have squirmed amid a global energy supply shock caused by the war, continue to pay close attention to Trump’s signals about a forthcoming deal, even when they don’t pan out. Meanwhile, more than 100 days into the war, Washington and Tehran seem to be even further from a deal than they were in mid-April, when they began a fragile ceasefire that was heralded as a path to a final agreement within two weeks.

“The market has had the hope that this is going to end any moment, any moment, any moment,” Peter Boockvar, chief investment officer at One Point BFG Wealth Partners, told CNBC. “I still think it’s grabbing onto that hope.”

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on this report.

Trump said early Tuesday morning that the U.S. and Iran could reach a “very, very good deal” in “two or three days.” Oil prices fell in the next trading session — though they reversed course Wednesday, after Trump vowed to attack Iran “very hard” absent a diplomatic breakthrough.

Oil and markets have responded positively to Trump stoking optimism that the end of the war is right around the corner via an agreement that’s palatable to both the U.S. and Iran.

That’s been the case even in recent weeks, as the testy U.S.-Iran truce has been repeatedly undermined by military flare-ups in the Persian Gulf and as peace talks have been further strained by Israel’s attacks in Lebanon.

Feeding the dynamic is an assumption from markets and analysts that, despite the continued conflict in the Middle East, a deal will eventually be reached that ends the war and reopens the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil-shipping route.

“While geopolitical developments continue to draw large oil moves, there is some optimism that the US and Iran will reach a peace deal this month,” Deutsche Bank researchers said in a June analyst note.

While both sides are eager to show they can endure protracted war, Iran’s economy has been battered and Trump’s approval ratings have sunk amid the conflict, leading observers to believe that incentives favor a deal.

“Trump’s need for an off-ramp means de-escalation bias may still prevail and provide a floor to equities,” Barclays analysts wrote in a June 3 equity research note.

“Each time he’s tweeted about it, oil has sold off and markets get optimistic,” Boockvar said of Trump. But “we’ve been close and on the goal line for a few months now.”

To be sure, Trump’s social media posts are not the only factor influencing oil and equities. The AI trade, which has propelled the stock market to record highs, is largely disconnected from the Iran conflict, for example. And oil prices, which rocketed higher after the war started but have since leveled off, are affected by an array of global forces, including a sharp decline in Chinese oil imports.

But Trump’s wartime updates receive close scrutiny — though even some of the president’s allies appear to be growing impatient with his claims about where negotiations stand.

“I’m starting to feel like we’re Charlie Brown and Iran is Lucy, and every time we go kick the ball it’s been taken away,” Rep. Carlos Gimenez, R-Fla., said in a Fox Business interview Tuesday. “You know, ‘We’re close to a deal, we’re two days from a deal, we’re three days from a deal,’ and it’s not happening.”

West Texas Intermediate crude fell 5.28% that session, though the decline at the time was linked to perceived progress in unblocking the Hormuz Strait.

A week later, Trump, in an all-caps Truth Social post, declared he was suspending military strikes due to “very good and productive conversations” about a total end to hostilities. Stocks rallied and oil plunged more than 10% after that announcement.

The situation reversed three days later when Trump muddled his message by warning Iran’s negotiators to “get serious soon, before it is too late,” before later insisting at a Cabinet meeting that Tehran is “begging to make a deal, not me.”

On March 29, Trump said negotiations are going “extremely well,” claiming Iran had agreed to most of a 15-point proposal put forward by the U.S. But Tehran publicly rejected that offer, and oil prices rose in the next trading session.

Trump claimed on March 31 that the war wouldn’t last much longer, and he wrote on Truth Social a day later that Iran’s president had asked the U.S. for a ceasefire. WTI crude prices fell on both days.

But no ceasefire emerged that week, and Trump started ratcheting up his rhetoric against Iran, dampening traders’ outlook.

After threatening to bomb Iran “back to the stone ages” and warning that its “whole civilization will die” if no deal was reached, Trump on the evening of April 7 said the two sides reached a two-week ceasefire agreement.

His announcement strongly suggested the temporary truce would give way to a permanent deal. “Almost all of the various points of past contention have been agreed to between the United States and Iran, but a two week period will allow the Agreement to be finalized and consummated,” Trump wrote.

Stocks soared and oil prices plummeted more than 16% on the news. But two weeks came and went, and although Trump continued to insist that negotiators had resolved most of their disagreements, no deal emerged.

Instead, each side accused the other of violating the terms of the ceasefire, and Trump on April 21 unilaterally extended the truce until Iran sends the U.S. a “unified proposal” to end the war.

Over the next month, Trump repeatedly doled out updates projecting progress on either a full deal or a short-term memorandum of understanding with Iran.

The end of the war “shouldn’t be too long,” Trump said May 1.

“I think we’re going to be finished with that very quickly, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon,” he said of Iran on May 19.

No deal of any kind came during that period, but both the U.S. and Iran reportedly launched strikes against each other.

On May 29, Trump said he was heading to the White House Situation Room to make a “final determination” on a deal. But he ended that meeting without coming to a decision. Oil prices fell anyway.

On June 1, Trump repeated that Iran “really wants to make a deal,” while admonishing his critics to ‘just sit back and relax” because “it will all work out well in the end – It always does!”

Iranian state media, however, reported later that day that its negotiators would halt communications with the U.S. and that Tehran would move to completely block the Hormuz Strait.

Trump then told CNBC he did not care if the negotiations were finished. But he later claimed talks with Iran are continuing “at a rapid pace.” WTI crude nevertheless rose nearly 6%.

Over the weekend, Iran and Israel traded strikes for the first time since the ceasefire began.

After leaving an NBA Finals game in New York City on Monday night, Trump told reporters the U.S. and Iran are in the final stages of a “very, very good deal” that could be reached in “two or three days.”

Earlier Monday evening, a U.S. Army helicopter went down while patrolling over the Hormuz Strait. Trump on Tuesday accused Iran of shooting it down, and the U.S. launched retaliatory strikes, prompting a military response from Iran.

On Wednesday, Trump said at the White House that the U.S. would strike Iran again.

“We’ll see what happens with the deal,” he added. He didn’t say a deal was close.

— CNBC’s Bria Cousins, Ashlee Trujillo, Irit Skulnik and John Melloy contributed to this report.