By Steve Holland
EVIAN-LES-BAINS, France, June 17 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday defended the U.S. deal with Iran in his remarks at the close of a G7 summit in France, saying he did not want to see an economic catastrophe that could have been triggered by a continued war in the Middle East.
“So the one thing I didn’t want to see is, I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened,” Trump told reporters in the lakeside resort of Evian-les-Bains.
The U.S. president said he did not want to be like Herbert Hoover, who was serving as U.S. president in October 1929 when the stock market crashed, causing the loss of billions of dollars and triggering what became known as the Great Depression.
The war, which began with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 and spiraled into a broader regional war, has sent energy prices up sharply, renewed inflationary pressures and sparked concerns about a major food supply crisis in developing countries.
Economists say the peace deal spells good news for the global economy, but warn of huge risks if the deal falls through and the conflict intensifies. They add that getting trade flows back to normal will also take months, if not longer, while fuel sector analysts and maritime experts say it could take a year for bunker fuel supplies to return to normal.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Daphne Psaledakis and Andrea Shalal in Washington; editing by Michelle Nichols)
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