When President Trump returned to the White House last year he generated all sorts of chaos by promising dozens of tariffs on multiple countries and multiple products, only to walk them back after a day or two. Eventually someone came up with the acronym TACO meaning “Trump always chickens out.”

In late February he began a campaign against Iran and it appears he’s TACO’ing again. He’s been famously all over the map in what he hopes to achieve, but that’s grist for another day. Most of his bombing targets have been military facilities in Iran but earlier this week he promised a major escalation warning that a whole civilization will die tonight.

This was widely interpreted to mean that he would target civilians, a clear war crime. But the next day he walked it back announcing a two week cease fire.

He claimed this was the result of Iran agreeing to negotiate but Iran denies these negotiations are even happening. One of Trump’s conditions is the opening of the Strait of Hormuz; it’s a narrow sea passageway where 30% of the world’s oil passes. It’s still effectively closed.

So where do we go from here? Hard to say. Much like his actions around tariffs he may again threaten to escalate the war. This makes everything more difficult. Our allies are being told they need to step up and “retake” the strait. Trump also claims we don’t need the oil that passes through the strait.

All we really do know is that he’s unpredictable and therefore dangerous. By the way, while it’s true that we produce more oil than we consume, oil prices rise and fall globally. We’re paying more money for gasoline regardless of where the oil comes from.

Stay tuned.