Power Lunch - President Trump Holds Press Conference 4/6/26

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

Partners Group's Anastasia Amoroso joins and reacts to President Trump's latest press conference. Council on Foreign Relations' Richard Haass outlines his thoughts on the developments in the Iran War.  And why hasn't gold performed like a safe-haven asset since the Iran War began? Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

You're listening to Power Launch in progress. President Trump at the news conference that began around 1 p.m. Eastern in Washington, held with the military, of course, to explain the rescue operation in Iran over the weekend. Markets initially traded lower as the price of oil shot near to session highs when he first began his remarks. But now it's a different tone. We're actually seeing markets near the highest levels they've been since that all began. The Dow's up about 140 points. A couple tenths of a percent gains across the major averages and oil is a little bit off of the highs.

Just towards the very end there, the president did say, with regard to what could happen on Tuesday night, it will happen over a period of four hours referring to the potential bombing campaign that would take place. But then he said something very interesting that, quote, we may even help them rebuild. Referring to Iran after this would be the case, again, all hypothetical and conjecture, but the markets are doing what they do. Megan Kisela is standing by at the White House with the key takeaways that, Megan, you've heard from that about 90-minute event. very long event there. And we heard a little bit of a mixed picture once again from the president. On one hand, he was vowing further escalation, ramping up attacks. He says tomorrow night,

unless there's a deal or an agreement to reopen the straight before then, but at the same time, also leaving the door open to those negotiations. So ramping up the rhetoric while saying there is still time to strike a deal. A few key lines that I heard throughout there. One came right at the top, and it was about escalation. That was when he said the entire country of Iran can be taken out in one night. And that night might be, he said, tomorrow night. So it can continuing to hedge his language there while saying, as you mentioned, that there is some sort of a plan for tomorrow. Towards the end, he said, we have a plan where every bridge, every power plant will be decimated by midnight tomorrow night. It would happen over this period of four hours, but, quote, we don't want that to happen.

So again, suggesting there's a window there. Now, he was asked point blank at one point, are you winding this down? The reporter was saying, we've heard both sides from you. What is the way forward? Are you winding this down? And the president replied, I don't know. I can't tell. It depends. what they do, this is a critical period. So sort of putting the onus there on the Iranians to come to the table in his view to make some sort of a deal. He was asked about the ceasefire proposal. He said, quote, I can't talk about ceasefire, but I can tell you that we have an active, willing participant on the other side. And again, asked what a deal would look like in his view. He said it has to be a deal that's acceptable to him. Part of that deal is going to be, we want

free traffic of oil and everything else. So he was asked a few times in there, whether reopening the straight would have to be part of any deal suggesting there, that free flow of oil would have to be part of it, that he wouldn't agree to something that didn't include that. Kelly? All right, Megan, thank you very much, Megan Kastella. By the way, welcome to Power Lunch. I'm Kelly Evans alongside John Ford this hour, or what's left of this hour, John, of course, is we in the markets digest we've just heard from the president. Indeed. And Anastasia Amaroso here with us as well. I want to get straight to that because a lot of discussion about the Strait of Hormuz, and of course we know, big impact on oil markets here.

You have been long infrastructure and utilities for quite a while. I guess this cuts both ways, in a sense. How is this affecting that? And even with the president's saying about perhaps the U.S. charging a toll for the... I have a feeling we're not supposed to take that seriously, but it does add a little asterisk to all of the ideas about this ending. Right. Well, I think the asterisk really goes to show that while there are threats,

there are also economic incentives that are possibly being thrown around as the negotiation takes place. But to your point about infrastructure, yes, energy infrastructure has been an investment topic for us. And I think what this conflict does, it really puts the on us on everybody to rethink how they invest in infrastructure, to make sure it is local, to make sure it's resilient, to make sure that power grid is protected, the safety of it is kept in mind. And so I think that kind of really re-underrides that longer-term thesis for us. You know, the market, the NASDAQ, I think, has been up for two of the last 12 weeks or something like that. You know, so yes, last week we actually saw surprisingly strong.

This was even as the oil price has done what it's doing, which is to react to what the president said in the middle of his speech last week and look at these events and basically just respond to the tight pricing by shooting higher. The stock market is now, is it bottoming? I mean, we've heard a number of people starting to come out and talk about that Yardinney. Tom Lee was on CNBC earlier talking about that. Do you think that's the case? I think there's a decent chance, a good chance that it is actually might be bottoming. You know, first, there are the economic reasons to kind of point to, and then I did find some positives, again, just reading between the lines of what President Trump just said just now. The economic reasons to kind of point to that is, first of all, we did actually price in a 35% probability of a recession, kind of at the depth of the market sell-off last week.

What's significant about that is looking at the economic indicators, we were probably right around 35% probability of recession. The market has priced that in. We did have valuations decline from 22 times to 19 times on the S&P, so actually the cheapest level that we've seen in quite some time. And here we are on the cusp of the earnings season that's about to start, and we're looking for 13.2 percent year-over-year growth. And I can go through a whole list of other catalysts from the consumer to corporates, et cetera.

So I do think the economic reasons, but also, you know, Kelly, I think there's a tentative signs that are emerging that the traffic in the Strait of Hormuz is actually picking. up even now. Right. You know, there, I'm sympathetic to those who say, and I don't know if these reports are confirmed, but that, for instance, in order to get through the straight, you have to pay in Chinese one, right? That there are some saying this is going to change the whole petrodollar system that has been in place for the past 50 years going back to the Suez Canal. I'll leave that to the historians and to the affairs to decide. But as that starts to happen, you just have to are we going through a process of normalization or not? I think we might be rewriting the playbook.

We'll see what the ultimate deal actually is. But I think the point is, you know, if we can get the oil and natural gas flowing to the customers that actually mean to buy it, which is Asia, that's a very significant, you know, deal for the market. So, I mean, if you think about the United States, you know, we largely have energy independence. We are a net, minimal net importer of oil, and we're a net exporter of natural gas. So while the psychological level of prices where the temporary spike in gasoline prices certainly hurt us, they don't hurt us. to the same extent as some of the Asia consumers they need it. So even if this does rewrite the system in its entirety, which I don't think it actually will, you know, if that means that Asia can get the oil, the LNG that it needs, and the global disruption doesn't persist.

Is this idea that the president seems to be putting forth of kind of unilateral U.S. supremacy? Is this good for the markets? The idea of the President of the United States calling NATO a paper Tiger, saying the U.S. doesn't need Europe, saying that, in essence, he has friendships across dictators who we've traditionally seen as enemies, but we can obliterate any one of them if we want to. Does this shore up the global economy because there's this idea that the U.S. can protect its interests, or does it destabilize the idea that the U.S. is only going to protect its interests? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's good for the market, John, but I think it once again just solidifies the view that we are in a different world regime right now.

And I don't think this just happened in the last four to six weeks. I think this has been happening for probably the last four to six years where I think there's this realization that U.S., European interests are diverging. China and Asia interests are diverging as well. And we have been in this, you know, each country, you know, for itself sort of mindset. You know, look, I think the markets can still do fine in that environment, but the investment opportunity has shifted. It means that if you want to be able to access European investment opportunities or Asian investment opportunities, it's not just enough to invest in the United States

and hope that you're going to get there through a cross-border deal, it means that you actually have to think differently about what is Europe going to do to potentially de-risk and decouple from the United States? What are they going to do on the infrastructure front? What are they going to do on the payments front? What are they going to do on the defense front, by the way? So I think it just really kind of reorders where the opportunities lie globally. It's also scrambled a little bit of what's going to happen with the central banks, you know, and I guess Europe's going to respond to some extent by hiking rates and the jury's out on whether we will. But you look at, you know, possibly the weakening consumer in the faces.

Maybe the oil shock isn't large enough yet to actually destabilize, but it feels a little jarring to hike rates unless the economy is, you know, doing it. Friday's going to be fascinating. CPI reading on Friday. It's going to be reminiscent of the, the famous Biden spikes of June 2020 up a point from the previous month when the Fed hiked by 75 basis points. But back then, you had all this fiscal and monetary stimulus. This time is very different. And, you know, and here comes, then a week later, we're going to start getting into the Warsh confirmation hearings. You know, it's, I don't know what your take is on whether they should hike in response to the price shock or actually be on the path of maybe easing policy.

My take is that they should not hike. The Federal Reserve should not hike in the face of this price shock. And the reason being, Kelly, is, you know, if you look at the U.S. economy, it is much less oil-reliant than it was, let's say, in 1973. It is about 63% less intensive. What that also means is that pass through the core inflation, for example, not anywhere where it used to be. So, in fact, probably given the magnitude of oil shock that we've had, we may see something like 25 or 30 basis points added to core inflation, which certainly is not helpful, but it's

also manageable. And, you know, the flip side of that is, you know, I do. I do think that between, you know, kind of a consumption tax on the U.S. consumer due to higher gasoline prices, you know, because of some margin pressure, most likely because of those higher commodity prices, this all things equal does slow economic growth. So why would the Fed hike in the face of that? And then the other thing I would say, if you look at the five-year, five-year inflation expectation, something that Chair Powell alluded to last week, I believe, those are well anchored in the United States. So I don't think the Fed goes. I also don't think the ECB should actually go. But they are more focused on the single inflation metric more so than growth or the jobs market.

Right. Yeah. Anastasia for now, thanks. Appreciate it. And so, by the way, you do think stocks are bottoming or no at this point? I do think there's a decent chance they are. I like the valuation reset here. We did a power poll to ask the viewers about that as well. We'll see what they say about Anastasia. Thanks. Let's take a look again at oil prices, which jumped briefly during President's News conference to about 100, 14 and change. We're now back in the 112. In fact, we're approaching levels where we'd be unchanged or even lower on the session. We're not there yet, to be clear, though. The president gave Iran until tomorrow to open the Strait of Hormuz or face attacks on power plants,

bridges, and more for more reaction to that and the latest on ceasefire attempts. Let's bring in Richard Haas, President Emeritus at the Council on Foreign Relations and a senior counselor at Centerview. And what's your counsel, Richard? Welcome. Glad to have you here in response to the latest that we've heard from the president. Well, I think we had basically better hope that the threats to take out Iran's power plants and bridges and everything else was simply a threat meant to somehow bolster negotiating prospects because if he ever carried it out, besides the price the people of Iran would pay for it. I think there's a high chance Iran would retaliate in kind against Saudi Arabia, against the

United Arab Emirates, against Bahrain, Kuwait, and so on and so forth. and it would be devastating for the region and for its ability to, among other things, produce and refine oil and gas. So we'd better hope that those were words, if you will, rather than actual plans that are going to be implemented. Right, but he was pretty specific about it. He said it would start at 8 p.m. It would take four hours, and that after that it would take the country 100 years to rebuild. And we, quote unquote, might even help them. Well, the fact that we might help them is an interesting tagline, because one of the things they run. are obviously hoping to get our reparations or what have you.

But again, my basic point is to actually go ahead and carry that out would be, I think, disaster not just for around, but for the countries of the region for the United States and for the world. It wouldn't get the straight of Hormuz open. It wouldn't deal successfully with a nuclear challenge. All it would do is lead to a wider, more destructive war. So let's just be realist about that. Richard, you've been talking for a while about global disorder before we even got into the state in the moment that we are now.

And I wonder, I think you were starting to allude to it, what that kind of attack on civilian infrastructure from the United States would do to the rules of the road geopolitically, particularly because it's the U.S., arguably in Israel alone embarking on this particular strategy. Europe doesn't seem keen to take that leverage point in trying to get goals met. Well, again, Europe was not in favor of this war to begin with. I'm not sure attacking Iran gives us an awful lot of leverage. I think one of the lessons we ought to have learned over the last five weeks is they're pretty good at taking a punch. This is a resilient society.

They lasted a decade in their war against Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of lives were lost. This is not an easy foe where we're up against. You know, going against civilian targets and the light raises questions of war crimes. It's the sort of thing Vladimir Putin was doing on a daily basis against Ukraine. And I would simply say, in addition to doubting the utility of it from a policy point of view, I'd like to think that we stand for something different. So what kind of a moment does that take us to?

I'm thinking historically here. perhaps when the lines of conduct militarily were less clear, perhaps when the bonds of trust were less clear between previous allies. How would you define the lines of potential change here in the U.S.'s position and where that leaves the global economy? Well, at the most basic level, for 80 years, the United States has been the principal architect, and you might call us the general contractor of order around the world, in Europe, through NATO, in Asia, through our relations with Japan and South Korea, Australia, and others,

and in the Middle East. And the question now is whether we're willing to play such a role. And I think the second Trump administration has raised basic questions about our willingness to do it. I think we're also seeing some limits in our ability to do it. The fact that in Iran, even though we're so much stronger and we've caused so much destruction there, can still do damage to our to our engines. It can shoot down American planes. It can attack the neighbors. It can close to others, the straight or her moves. It shows that we're living in a world where the United States may be the single most powerful actor militarily and economically. But that doesn't mean we're in a position of domination. It doesn't mean we can impose our will on others that like it or not, we're

living in a world where others have a say, and we've got to learn to figure out what it is we're prepared to tolerate. Richard, going back to the president's threatened next move in destroying power plants and bridges, is it self-evident that that would destroy the Iranians' ability to close the strait? Or would they still be able to use the military wherewithal that would remain if it remained to continue to exert their influence? In other words, are those strikes intended to re-react? open the strait and would they actually achieve that purpose?

They would not achieve that purpose. In order to close the street, all you need to do is be able to shoot off the odd drone or missile. Iran has decentralized the launch authority for these systems, and it doesn't take an awful lot to effectively close the strait because insurance companies aren't going to write insurance. If there's even an intestimal chance that a hundred million dollar tanker carrying a full load of oil is going to get attacked, you're going to see the straights effectively come to a close. Let's just make it clear. There's not a military answer, either to Iran's nuclear program right now or to the challenge of keeping open the strait. I think we're going to have to negotiate on the nuclear side, on the straight. I'm open to negotiating.

What I'd like to see, actually, is an end to Iran's ability to use it if others can't use it. My position is it ought to be open for all or close to all, and we ought to build a blockade in the Gulf of to basically tell Iran, you're not going to be able to enjoy the economic benefits of everybody else can. That would be a military operation I would support. It would be a lot easier than going after, for example, Carg Island or anything like that. That would be something we could do. We could even potentially do it with our European allies. Explain that one more time as we put the map back on the screen. You're talking about the Gulf of Oman, which sits just to the south of the kind of narrowest part of the strait. And you think that we ought to blockade that? It's basically to the east.

200 miles across. You could do it with aircraft and ships. It would be a far less demanding operation than taking or seizing and holding any of the islands. It'd be far less demanding than trying to escort individual tankers. Again, it's a simple message. Everybody gets to use the straight or moos or nobody, including Iran, gets to use it. That would put economic pressure on Iran. We made a mistake by allowing Iran to sell the oil. It already had at sea. We can't undo that now. But we ought to send the message to Iran and to countries like China that benefit from Iran's ability to export them oil.

Again, the strait has to be open to everyone. I want to get China to help us here. I want to get India, Turkey, Pakistan, all these countries that are benefiting. The best way I know to get them on our side, to put pressure on Iran, is to basically end the exception that allows them to benefit from an Iran-controlled strait of Hormuz. So you're saying create a necessary. detour for the entire world, removing Iran's privilege to have a pivot point and a chokehold there. But then at the same time, not just metaphorically, but literally, there are barriers then coming up.

That doesn't sound like de-escalation. It doesn't sound like going back to some sense of normal from before. And that sounds like a better case scenario. Right now, what we just heard from the president was some pretty strong rhetoric. We've heard some pretty strong rhetoric out of the Iranian leadership as well. How long is your sense that this would take to de-escalate from here? Well, again, a lot would depend upon what kind of diplomatic pressure or economic pressure it put on Iran. I'd be open to having a negotiation to set up a new authority that would oversee the conduct, the traffic through the Strait of Ormuz. Iran could have a role in that, as with the other countries of the region. But again, I want to avoid situations where we escalate

militarily against Iran because I worry about its ability to escalate against countries we care about, which happened to be the countries that are producing the oil and gas that it's not simply our cars and trucks and planes run on, but this is the raw material for fertilizer and the rest. This goes out for a few more weeks. We're going to face a world food crisis as well. We're going to find that lots of the things in our supply chains we're missing, like helium and so forth, essential for the production of chips. So the stakes here are really large. So all this talk that we just had about energy independence and the rest misses the point. We are still affected by events in this part of the world. And I think what we've got to move towards is an approach

where we basically get the straight open. That's the short run objective. The medium and long-term objective has to be to place the ceiling on what Iran can do in the nuclear realm. I think that's possible. But taking out their bridges and power plants is not going to be the way to to get there. Oh, your blockade idea is an intriguing one, Richard, and we'll see if it goes that way in the days to come. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. Richard Haas. Now has gold lost its shine? So-called safe haven asset, very much not serving as that since the Iran war began. We're going to talk to a gold portfolio manager about that right after the break. Welcome back. Gold prices moving slightly higher to start the trading week, but the precious

metal coming off its worst month since 2013. Joining us now on to break down his picks is Chris Vansini, a portfolio manager and analyst at Gabali asset management. Chris, good to have you. Thanks for being with us here. We've been talking about this war in Iran. And if I'm not mistaken, you've long-framed gold equities as a leveraged play on sovereign balance sheet deterioration. U.S. spending a lot here on this military exercise. Europe's going to have to spend a lot more on its own defense as well as some other things. Is that a bullish setup and even more bullish setup for gold in your view? Yeah, I think so. I mean, the big picture with gold is that it's an asset which is nobody's liability.

So unlike treasuries or German bonds or French bonds or whatever, you aren't lending to somebody when you're buying gold. You buy gold. You put it in your pocket. You buy a treasury. You're lending to the United States government. So as debts and deficits do grow, gold becomes more attractive. That's definitely one aspect of. of the trade at this point. And yeah, all of this increased spending on defense will definitely

contribute to that trade. To what extent is that already priced in, though, given this huge run that gold has had and given the fact that, well, if you're looking at Europe's going to have to spend more on defense, there's some European defense stocks that you could buy to play that. Yeah, I think the big picture with gold, though, also from that perspective as well is just that we're going through a big, I think, paradigm change in terms of the de-dollarization of global reserves. So when Russia invaded Ukraine, the United States essentially confiscated the treasuries that Russia owned, and essentially Russia was lending to the United States, so we said, we're not

going to pay you back. So that took gold from around $2,000 an ounce to $5,000. I think that right now what we're seeing, you know, we saw the president talking and that kind of stuff in terms of just a new world order. And in this new world order, I don't think there's a good chance that the dollar is not the global reserve currency. Exactly what we were just discussing. By the way, Turkey's also been selling to try to support its currency, which some analysts think is not a good idea.

Be that. So people wonder what's the recent selling about retail investors freaking out. But what you just said is so interesting, because some think that what comes out of this is a pact basically between Iran and the Chinese or other players call it to say, we'll let things go through the straight if you're paying in one or if you're paying in gold. And is that what you're talking about? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So just right now, everything settles in dollars. So if you run a foreign exchange surplus, you're buying dollars, you're buying treasuries, you're lending to the United States government. And given everything that's going on right now with this whole new paradigm change, this whole new world regime change,

I think there's a very good chance that those countries that run surpluses will not want to continue to lend to the United States. And that means that gold is the only other alternative. By the way, Artemis Gold, for people who are, there's a couple, you could buy the gold, there's other stock picks you have as well. has nothing to do with the space flight, which they did just cross the furthest distance ever traveled. So congratulations to them. But Artemis Gold is also an equity, along with Alamos and Newmont. Why these three? Well, these are just big generators of free cash flow. And for Artemis and Alamos, they're in very safe jurisdictions. Also, Newman is due. But Artemis and Alamos are growing a lot. So their production is going to grow by around 60%, 70%, over the next couple of years.

Where do you think the gold prices headed ultimately? I think it's going through $6,000 an ounce. You know, we were at 15.000. 300. It came down again on all of this, you know, turkey selling and that kind of thing. But I think when the dust settles and there is this new paradigm shift, we do go through $6,000. And the recent selling pressure? Is that just retail or is there something more to that? I think there's also, I think, not just turkey, but the Gulf states might also be selling, right? Because they can't export their oil. They have to pay their bills. They have gold reserves. Gold's serving its purpose. It's being a liquid asset right now.

Chris Mancini. Great to have you. Thank you so much. Appreciate it with Gubeli. John. Thank you so much as well. Good to be with you. Busy hour here on Power Lunch. Thanks for it from us. And closing bell will pick things up right.