War And Piece

By Michael Every of Rabobank

Sorry, Bank of Canada (rates held at 2.25%), Chinese CPI and PPI (1.2% and 3.9% y-o-y headline) US CPI (0.5% m-o-m and 4.2% y-o-y headline, 0.2% and 2.9% core), and the ECB today: you all matter but are just pieces of the global picture one now needs to finish: the war vs. Iran.

Changing the recent pattern, President Trump said he would strike Iran again today and did. At time of writing, nearly 50 Tomahawk missiles had been fired alongside airstrikes against radar and drone installations, with a disputed report that a petrochemicals plant was also hit. Even by the standards of the ‘peacefire’ --which, as I’d argued yesterday morning, Iran’s leadership then agreed no longer suits them-- this is a major escalation.

However, the US is still holding back compared to what it can do militarily, and Israel is sitting on its hands. Notably, Trump told Fox News he has been in direct contact with senior Iranian leadership, a new development, and they had asked him to stop bombing: to which he claims he told them to sign the deal on the table, or on Thursday evening he will “Bomb the s**t out of them.” In other words, hits against infrastructure, energy, and nuclear sites, can’t be ruled out.

The immediate Iranian response has been to declare Hormuz entirely closed to all ships. However, despite the fact that Iran was prepared for these US strikes there have, as yet, been no successful counterstrikes against US bases in the Middle East or against GCC energy and water infrastructure. Will this happen with a lag? If not is Iran unable to do so, or just unwilling to? Equally, will Iran act with the Houthis to close the Bab-el-Mandeb and Red Sea, making this energy crisis far worse?

These are staggeringly important geopolitical questions on which global markets, and the BoC and Chinese and US inflation, will ultimately pivot.

So far, the market reaction has been relatively mild – oil only up around $2. Perhaps part of that is down to another piece of the Iran puzzle that has befuddled energy experts and visitors from outside the field – what is happening in terms of oil flows from Hormuz.

Trump had yesterday announced the US is taking “millions of barrels of oil” from Iran, causing the usual consternation. A breakdown of what he meant comes from shipping maven @mercoglianos, who argues the US secretly resumed Project Freedom to escort ships through Hormuz using autonomous vehicles, aircraft, and drones to escort ships through the southern Strait near Oman. Very Large Crude Carriers are exiting the Gulf, conducting ship-to-ship transfers to smaller tankers near Oman, then returning to pick up more oil. In that regard, oil can flow even as the number of ships stuck in the Gulf appears unchanged. War risk insurance, potentially provided by the US Development Finance Corporation, could be covering these few ships making the transits. Yet Iran has been targeting them and the US responding with airstrikes: the Apache helicopter just shot down, triggering a new US attack, was likely part of this operation.

Of course, what may have been happening invisibly, despite 24/7 market coverage, can’t compensate for normal Gulf flows, which is why the plunge in the US and Japan’s SPR and a huge drop in China’s oil imports --none of which are sustainable-- are doing the heavy lifting to keep oil below $100. That dynamic always pointed to escalation: will it be military now, via the US; with others later as more energy panic kicks in; or via more backchannel diplomacy from China? 

Regardless, it’s hard to make economic or central bank forecasts without one for the Iran War, as the FT says airlines are drawing up cuts for an 'ugly' winter’ due to stubbornly high jet fuel prices; Reuters notes global container shipping rates are soaring and “Fuel analysts and maritime experts warn it could take around a year for bunker fuel supplies to return to normal even if Trump is able to quickly clinch an Iran deal”; and the UK Telegraph argues farmers may have to stop planting crops without government support.

But geopolitics and geoeconomics are to the fore everywhere and it’s not only energy and petrochemicals being squeezed.

In the Middle East, Turkey’s President Erdogan claimed Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Syria threaten it and “its aggression must be stopped”, after talking about the liberation of Jerusalem. Israel’s diplomatic response was equally undiplomatic; Saudi Arabia resumed imports from Lebanon after a five-year hiatus; and a Saudi-Turkey rail link may be completed within three years.

In the Americas, Trump suggested he may not renew the USMCA trade deal with Mexico and Canada; and US Secretary of War Hegseth warned Cuba that any arms procurement by it seen as threatening the US could invite a confrontation - we are talking about 1956 at the moment, so why not 1962 too?

In Europe, five capitals are reportedly calling to freeze voting rights for new EU members, radically changing the structure of the Union; Politico reports ‘French far-right firebrand’ Zemmour is embracing MAGA to try to pay political dividends at home ahead of the 2027 presidential election; and the South China Morning Post asks ‘As de-dollarisation trends persist, can the yuan take the euro’s place?’, meaning taking the #2 spot in global settlements from the single currency.

In Australia, the political scene continues to churn with talk of a ‘non-compete’ clause and voting preference deal between the centre-right Liberals and populist right One Nation that has suddenly soared in the polls.

In Asia, Taiwan fired US mobile missile launchers into the waters facing China for the first time as “a message of resolve”, according to the Wall Street Journal; the US has asked China to resume rare earth exports to Japan, which have been cut off, as Tokyo pivots to US tungsten scrap exports to fill that gap, and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s curbs on cobalt exports have sparked shortages for everyone, including China; Japan’s parliament passed a revised economic security law to support overseas projects (as Bloomberg asks ‘Who’s Afraid of ‘Japanese Neo-Militarism’? Nobody’ - that’s arguably not true; and BOJ Governor Ueda has been hospitalized and is expected to miss the June policy meeting. Get well soon and perhaps be can follow the Iran news from there.

Indeed, now back to whatever piece of the war you happen to be focusing on.