If you set aside your logic and rational thought and listen instead to what Donald Trump and his media echo chamber is saying about the war with Iran you are hearing this:

The US has wiped out Iran’s military capabilities.

The nuclear program is obliterated.

Iran’s economy is shattered and it is looking for a way to be reintegrated into the global economy.

The current US blockade of Iranian ports from outside the Strait of Hormuz is a smashing success and has bankrupted the Iranian economy.

Is Donald Trump Trying to Create a Nuclear Narrative as his Escape ramp from the War with Iran?

by Larry C. Johnson

All of this is essentially propaganda. What I do not know is whether Trump and his team sincerely believe this tripe or are they building a narrative to gaslight the public and create a reason for the US to exit the war with Iran? I think Donald Trump’s collapsing poll ratings and growing criticism of this social media antics from within his MAGA base has alarmed Susie Wiles and accelerated the hunt for a viable exit plan.

This headline from FoxBuisness is the latest example of Trump’s new narrative construction project: Trump says Iran war is ‘very close to being over’ as peace talks are expected to resume. Here are the key points:

President Donald Trump said the U.S.-Iran war is “very close” to an end as hostilities ease amid a two-week ceasefire agreement.

“I think it’s close to over, yeah. I view it as very close to being over,” Trump told FOX Business anchor Maria Bartiromo in an interview that will air on “Mornings with Maria” on Wednesday. . . .

Despite Trump saying the war is nearing an end, he also said the U.S. is not done.

“If I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild that country. And we’re not finished,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly. . . .

Trump justified his entrance into the Middle East conflict, telling “Mornings with Maria” it was necessary to disarm Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“I had to divert because if I didn’t do that, right now, you’d have Iran with a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “And if they had a nuclear weapon, you’d be calling everybody over there ‘sir,’ and you don’t want to do that.”

Trump’s erratic comments on relations with Iran and the state of the war have jumped from one extreme to another over the course of the last 10 days. However, I think we do have a clue about Trump’s thinking based on JD Vance’s final address to the press prior to departing Islamabad on Saturday, when he singled out Iran’s refusal to compromise on nuclear enrichment as the major obstacle to an agreement to end the war… He was saying that on instructions from the White House.

In a recent speech to Turning Point USA, Vance signaled what Trump’s exit plan may be:

Trump says to Iran: “If you commit to not having a nuclear weapon, we are going to make Iran economically thrive.”

Today we have Donald Trump, during his interview with Maria Bartiromo, reiterating the anti-nuke theme… i.e., necessary to disarm Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Gone are justifications involving regime change or opening the Strait of Hormuz. The central issue now is whether Iran will build a nuke.

Retired US Army Lt. Colonel Danny Davis (watch his podcast, Deep Dive) has an interesting take on what Trump might do in the next two weeks:

I have a theory developing, which could explain how Trump is planning to end this war that cannot be militarily won.

Earlier this afternoon I was contacted by a source in London, that claimed four separate well placed British assets all corroborated the same story, that once the cease-fire is over, Trump will unload a massive missile barrage throughout Iran, destroying any military targets on the ground still left standing, and pound away at many of these missile cities in the sides of mountains.

The sources didn’t understand what that was supposed to accomplish, only that all of the pieces were in place to make it happen, and the additional ammunition had been delivered to fwd operating bases.

When you combine that with what Trump just said on Fox Business News tonight, I’m now thinking that Trump is going to unleash this massive aerial bombardment, and then just claimed that he has militarily won the war, and walk away!

He is teasing out that exact concept in this 30 second clip here, where he tells Maria Bartiromo that the war is “almost over” and that it will take 20 years for Iran to recover. So he will just declare the nuclear program obliterated, the missile program obliterated, and their conventional military utterly destroyed, and therefore they are no longer a threat.

There is no indication from the Iranian side that a new round of talks is set for this week, but people around Trump are leaking that to the press. Consider this question… Was Vance’s walkout of the negotiations in Islamabad a bit of theater? If the US asks Pakistan to host again and the US meets with the Iranian delegation and offers them a deal that is essentially JCPOA with no time limit, then Trump could claim that he has secured a permanent commitment from Iran to never build a nuke.

But there are several obstacles to reaching such an agreement… The biggest one is Lebanon and the war with Hezbollah. Iran is not going to abandon Hezbollah, which means that Israel will have to agree to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in exchange for Hezbollah’s agreement to stop firing drones, rockets and missiles into Israel or the war will continue, with Iran assisting Hezbollah. I doubt that Trump will abandon Israel, so the absence of a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel would be a deal breaker.

Besides the nuclear agreement scenario, Fox News is pushing another narrative, i.e., The blockade is super effective, Iran is running out of money and is begging to renew negotiations. That narrative is a lie, but that is the story the White House is pushing to explain why it may be sitting down with Iranian officials, perhaps this week. The bet that the blockade will force Iran back to the negotiating table ready to surrender is based on the following (questionable) assumptions in an article posted by Miad Maleki. I would note that Maleki has a solid track record of being consistently wrong in his predictions, but the nonsense he is spewing is being gobbled up in the Trump White House by nervous Zionists. Maleki writes:

Over 90% of Iran’s seaborne trade transits the Strait of Hormuz. Shahid Rajaee (Bandar Abbas) alone handles 53% of all cargo operations. Imam Khomeini handles 58% of basic goods imports. Bushehr ports moved 57M tons last year. All deep inside the Gulf. 

ALTERNATIVES? Iran’s options outside the Strait are negligible. Jask, the much-touted bypass, operates at a fraction of its 1M bbl/day design capacity. Only 10 of 20 storage tanks were built. Effective throughput: ~70K bbl/day. Chabahar handles just 8.5M tons/year. The five Caspian ports combined handle 11M tons, versus 220M+ through the Gulf. 

IMPORTS: Iran imported $58B in goods in 2025, ~$159M/day. A blockade chokes off industrial inputs, machinery, and consumer goods. Food inflation already hit 105% by February 2026. Rice prices are up 7x. This gets dramatically worse under blockade. Blockade will hopefully allow offloading of the humanitarian cargos. 

Extremely important topic is the storage clock: Iran has ~50-55M barrels of total onshore oil storage, roughly 60% full. Spare capacity: ~20M barrels. With 1.5M bbl/day of surplus production that normally exports, storage fills in ~13 DAYS. After that, Iran must shut in wells. When mature oil wells shut down, bottom water rushes in, a process called water coning. Oil droplets get permanently trapped in rock pores. This oil can never be recovered. Iran’s fields already decline 5-8% annually. Forced shut-ins could permanently destroy 300,000-500,000 bbl/day of production capacity, that’s $9-15B/year in revenue, gone forever. 

CURRENCY COLLAPSE ACCELERANT: The rial has already cratered from 42,000 to 1.5M per dollar. Banks are limiting withdrawals to $18-30/day. Overall inflation: 47.5%. A blockade eliminating all forex earnings pushes the rial into terminal hyperinflation. The regime issued its largest-ever banknote, 10M rials, worth about $7. 

BOTTOM LINE: A naval blockade imposes ~$435M/day in combined economic damage. Storage fills in 13 days, forcing well shut-ins that cause permanent reservoir damage. The rial enters terminal collapse. Iran’s alternatives outside the Strait can replace less than 10% of Gulf throughput. The blockade makes continued resistance economically impossible. 

Despite Western news reports claiming the blockade is a great success, it is a charade… so far at least. If the US begins, or tries, to interdict ships — especially those headed to China — then the potential for the blockade to explode into a larger war is significant. But looking at the price of oil futures (see oilprice.com), the folks trading oil futures are firmly convinced that the war is coming to an end and the current shortage of oil will be short lived. I think that is delusional. Unless and until the US fully complies with Iran’s 10-point plan, the Strait of Hormuz will be closed to all ships serving Western interests, the shortage of oil will persist and the war will continue. The current cease fire expires Monday, April 20 and Iran is prepared to continue fighting. The wild card remains Donald Trump… What will he do?

https://ronpaulinstitute.org/is-donald-trump-trying-to-create-a-nuclear-narrative-as-his-escape-ramp-from-the-war-with-iran/

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SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJXG6YAMcD4