"Every announcement moved markets and every extension of a deadline crashed oil. Then escalation would push it back up and the cycle would repeat. This happened seven times in fifty-two days.

The structure of it was identical each time.

Escalated rhetoric from the president would push crude higher as traders priced in the risk of a supply disruption or a strike on Iranian energy infrastructure.

Then a deadline was set.
That deadline would be extended or a pause was announced.
Oil would crash, equities surge, and the cycle reset and the rhetoric escalated again.

Seven deadline cycles in fifty-two days, each producing a spike and a crash, and each producing a window in which the direction of the market was determined by a single variable that had nothing to do with supply or demand.

The variable was a presidential announcement and the announcement was known to a finite number of people before it was known to the public.