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Oil prices tumbled Monday after President Donald Trump said he called off a planned strike on Iran.
West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. benchmark, declined about 5% to close at $80.34 per barrel. Brent crude, the international benchmark, lost 4.7% to settle at $83.77 a barrel.
Trump said early Sunday that he had called off a planned strike on Iran after receiving a request from Tehran and other countries in the Middle East.
"We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to," Trump said in a Truth Social post.
The president said the proposed agreement would include the "Immediate, Complete, and Total OPENING OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT, and an end to Iran's nuclear threat."
Trump had been weighing another round of strikes on Iran amid fading prospects for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict, which began on Feb. 28.
The president said the U.S. and Iran would hold negotiations on Monday. Tehran denied that talks were planned with Washington, according to state news outlet PressTV.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran was only holding talks with Oman on what route ships can sail through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump said in a subsequent Truth Social post that whether "Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused, for decades."
