US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Washington does not need a deal with Tehran and pulled Vice President JD Vance away from the negotiations, in remarks that Sri Lankan and international outlets link to a rise in world crude prices.

In a morning post on Truth Social, Trump said he was directing Vance — who had been leading the US-Iran negotiations — “to focus his complete and total attention” on crime and corruption in Democratic states and cities instead.

“We don’t need a deal with Iran. Those days have long since passed!” Trump wrote, according to CNN’s account. “We’ve got their money, Hundreds of Billions of Dollars, and we’ve got their Strait!”

The market reaction

Hiru News reported that crude prices rose on the statement, putting Brent up 3.3% at US$95.82 a barrel and WTI up 2.6% at US$88.74.

Those figures appear only in the Hiru filing. CNN’s report is a political account and carries no oil prices, so this desk attributes the percentages and barrel prices to Hiru alone rather than presenting them as confirmed market data.

A more mixed message than the headline suggests

Hiru presents the day as a straight line from a refusal to deal to higher prices. CNN’s account is less tidy, and the difference matters for anyone reading the price move as a one-way signal.

CNN reports that Trump “offered mixed messages” on Thursday. Having posted in the morning that no deal was needed, he later conceded it would be a “defeat” to walk away while Iran’s current government remains in power. In an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt the same day, he took a more combative line on resuming military strikes — “it’s possible I would do it right now” — while also saying he saw no present reason to use force.

“We control the Gulf in terms of the Hormuz Strait. We control it, totally control it,” Trump told Hewitt.

CNN adds that the comments landed while Washington and Tehran had been quietly negotiating an agreement that could avert a return to full-scale war, and that stepping back from the file suits Vance, who has had little success in the talks and has publicly blamed the war for Republican losses at the midterms as he weighs a 2028 presidential run.

Why it matters in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka imports virtually all its crude and refined fuel, so world prices feed directly into the import bill and into Ceylon Petroleum Corporation pricing decisions.

The direction has now reversed twice in a week. This desk reported on 9 November that prices were falling as strikes on Iran came to look less likely, and on 12 November that OPEC output had returned to near pre-war levels.

Not reported

Neither filing gives a closing price for the session, says whether the rise held after the Hewitt interview, or quantifies the effect on Sri Lanka’s import costs. Neither reports a response from Tehran to Trump’s statement, and neither says who now leads the US side of the negotiations.