President Donald Trump said Wednesday he expects the U.S.-Iran war to end right after November’s midterm elections — and warned Tehran not to “get cute” over activity at Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified tunnel complex near Natanz — while Brent crude stayed elevated above $100 a barrel on fresh shipping and Red Sea risk.

Speaking to reporters as he headed to Texas for the Republican Party’s first midterm election convention, Trump framed the calendar of the war around Election Day. “I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer,” he said, according to Reuters, BBC, CNBC, and CBS. “They're desperate to try and affect the election,” he added — an allegation Tehran has not been shown to prove, and which he did not document with evidence.

On fuel costs that have hammered his polling, Trump told reporters: “Right after the election, oil prices are going to be tumbling downward,” the BBC reported. He also said short-term economic pain was, in his view, worth preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran denies seeking a bomb and says its nuclear work is peaceful. Midterms fall on Nov. 3, 2026; Republicans are defending control of Congress as the war — now in its sixth-to-seventh month since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in February — and higher fuel prices drag Trump’s approval.

At the midterm GOP convention in Dallas, Trump sharpened the nuclear warning. “We notice there's a little activity at Pickaxe. I would advise Iran not to get cute because we will have to hit them very hard,” he said, per Reuters and CNBC. Pickaxe Mountain (Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La), about 2 kilometers from the damaged Natanz enrichment complex, hosts deeply buried tunnel facilities the U.S. has threatened for months. A Center for Strategic and International Studies satellite review published Wednesday described more road and construction activity at the site in 2026 than at any prior point in its history, shifting toward probable internal work and exterior reinforcement; CSIS said it could not confirm or refute claims that centrifuges had been moved inside.

Trump is not racing to the table. CBS reported he said he is not looking to negotiate with Iran before the midterms: “We're not looking for it, to be honest.” The BBC quoted him saying a negotiation “could possibly happen” but “it's not something we're looking at.” That is wartime executive force on a political clock — deadlines and strike threats tied to a domestic election calendar — whether or not one shares his nuclear rationale.

The comments landed as the Gulf fight flared again. Iran said it had attacked ships near the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. sank Iranian-linked tankers; CENTCOM has denied Iranian claims of hits on U.S. destroyers. Brent rose above $100 this week on Hormuz disruption fears; CNBC had November Brent around $102 Thursday morning. Separately, Iranian missiles targeted Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan; Jordan said it intercepted most of them. Sources told CBS that one A-10 lost a wing and about eight F-15s took light damage, with no U.S. deaths reported — context for the same week’s escalation, not the core of Trump’s midterms pitch. Iran-aligned Houthis also pressed Mocha and Bab el-Mandeb approaches, Reuters reported Thursday, another pressure point on energy routes already strained by Hormuz.

What is new is not another Hormuz tanker tally or IAEA referral — those angles are already on the desk. It is the White House tying the end of a multi-month war, and cheaper oil, to the day after voters decide who runs Congress, while dangling a harder hit on Pickaxe if Tehran “gets cute.” Concentrated wartime power on an election timetable is the story. Watch whether Pickaxe activity draws strikes, whether oil actually falls after Nov. 3, and whether the war’s end matches the president’s schedule — or outruns it.

Sources