As attacks shake markets, Trump seeks to reassure Americans.

The Tel Aviv skyline is seen from an apartment damaged during an overnight Iranian missile attack, on Thursday, March 19, 2026. The Trump administration said on Thursday that it was considering new steps as it scrambles to avert a sustained energy crisis set off by the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran. (Avishag Shaar-Yashuv/The New York Times)

By TONY ROMM, ISABEL KERSHNER, JOHANNA REISS, DAVID E. SANGER and JAVIER C. HERNÁNDEZ

The White House raced to find ways to reassure Americans as oil prices jumped at one point Thursday to $118 a barrel and a global energy crisis deepened nearly three weeks into the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. President Donald Trump said Thursday that he would do whatever was necessary to ease the crisis but that it was temporary. “It will be over soon,” he said.

His comments came hours before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said during a news conference in Israel that Iran no longer possessed the capabilities to enrich uranium or manufacture ballistic missiles. He provided no evidence and said nothing about Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium that was buried under the country’s nuclear site at Isfahan by U.S. strikes last year. The White House did not immediately comment.

Netanyahu also said the war against Iran could end “a lot faster than people think,” though he did not suggest a concrete timeline. He then said, “There’s still more work to do, and we’re going to do it.”

Oil prices have been surging since the start of the conflict on Feb. 28, with international crude futures up close to 50% in less than three weeks. On Thursday afternoon, after Trump spoke, it had dropped to $102. The concern at first was Iran’s effort to halt oil and natural gas exports out of the Persian Gulf, but in the past 24 hours, the attacks and counterattacks on oil and gas production have injected new uncertainty.

While an end to the conflict would reopen the shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz, serious damage to oil infrastructure would be longer lasting. That outcome is what economists fear most, as they try and forecast the potential impact on the global economy. As crude rises, so do gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and eventually those increases pass through to the prices of everyday goods.

Earlier Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox Business that the U.S. government “may unsanction the Iranian oil” that is already being shipped, about 140 million barrels, and that the United States could also release more oil from its own strategic reserves. It was the latest sign of how serious the energy crisis has become, and it reflected the Trump administration’s desperation to reduce crude oil prices.

Bessent’s comments came amid reports that the Pentagon had sent the White House a request for $200 billion in funding for the war in Iran — a significant sum adding to the costs of an already divisive campaign. The White House will review the request before it is formally submitted to Congress.

As tit-for-tat attacks in the Persian Gulf have sent oil and natural gas prices soaring, European natural gas prices surged as much as 30%. Qatar, a major global energy supplier, said that Iranian attacks had damaged gas sites, including the Ras Laffan terminal, the world’s largest liquefied natural gas facility.

The Iranian attacks in Qatar were in retaliation for an Israeli attack on a major gas field, South Pars, on Wednesday. In his news conference, Netanyahu said Trump had asked Israel to hold off launching any further attacks on South Pars and that Israel would respect that.

Earlier, during a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office, Trump was asked about using ground troops in Iran. He said: “I’m not putting troops anywhere. If I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

At the otherwise congenial meeting, Trump broke a long-held taboo by invoking the Japanese attack on Dec. 7, 1941, that led the United States into World War II. Responding to a reporter’s question about why Japan and other allies had received no warning of the U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, he said: “We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise. Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK?”

As he spoke, Takaichi widened her eyes, appeared to take a deep breath and kept her arms crossed in her lap. She did not respond.

Here’s what else we are covering:

— Washington: Tulsi Gabbard, director of national intelligence, told a House committee hearing that Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader of Iran, had been badly injured in an Israeli attack.

— Saudi Arabia: Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister said that the country reserved the right “to take military actions if deemed necessary” to protect itself from Iranian attacks.

— Death tolls: Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations said last week that at least 1,348 civilians had been killed since the start of the war. On Wednesday, a Washington-based human rights group, the Human Rights Activists News Agency, reported that at least 1,369 civilians had been killed. The number of Lebanese killed rose to more than 1,000, Lebanon’s health ministry said Thursday. At least 14 people have been killed in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials have said. The U.S. death toll stood at 13.