Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 4/13/26: Trump Blockades Hormuz Strait, Negotiations Break Down, Gas Prices Spike

Episode Date: April 13, 2026

Krystal and Saagar discuss Trump blockades Hormuz Strait, negotiations break down, gas prices spike.    Norm Finkelstein: https://www.amazon.com/Gazas-Gravediggers-Inquiry-Corruption-Places/dp/1682196577 Trita Parsi: https://x.com/tparsi?s=20 Rory Johnston: https://x.com/Rory_Johnston    To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than No Grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F-1, including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F-1 romance novels,

and plenty of mishap scandals and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to No Grip. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with Noah Kahn, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit, stick season, and one of the biggest voices in music today.

Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now, I need it more than ever. Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the IHart Radio app. Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast Playing Along is back with more of my favorite musicians.

Check out my newest episode with Josh Groban. You related to The Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning. Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free,

and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Good morning, everybody. Happy Monday. I have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? We have all the latest details in terms of the failed negotiations thus far, including Trump's decision to blockade the blockade. We'll try to dig into how much sense that makes and how successful it will be. Trudea Parsi is also going to join to break down his view of where we are in the negotiations and the American red lines that made this whole thing fall apart. Oil prices this morning are up for. understandable reasons. Rory's going to join us to talk about what he expects in the near future.

South Korea is aggressively fighting with Israel as Israel continues their mass slaughter in Lebanon. Eric Swalwell has suspended his campaign for governor after serious allegations of sexual assault and just generally very creepy behavior. And Norm Finkelstein is going to join. It's been a while since we've had Norm on. He has a lot of thoughts, as you can imagine, about Iran and the role Israel played in getting us into this war. So very much looking forward to speaking with him. There you go. Thank you to everybody who's been subscribing, supporting the show, breaking points.com, if you're able to become a premium subscriber. This week, we will have a coveted Emily and Sager AMA. All right. So for all of those who've ever wanted that, you can keep all

your hostile questions in the chat. Get them ready and get ready to go. Stop it. The people love you guys. No, no, I know that they. You guys get two Emily and Sager shows this week, actually. That's right. Yeah. It's going to be quite, it's going to be quite, it's going to be quite an interesting show this week. And thank you to everybody also who has been hitting the subscribe button. We are now at 2.02 million. I think what did we agree on? 2.5? Yeah. 2.5. It can just stop after that. 2.5. Zero is a much cleaner number than 2.5.1. I'm sure I'll change my tune if we do eventually hit that. So thank you. And if you're listening to this is a podcast, please share an episode with a friend. We really appreciate it whenever you do so. It helps other people

find the show. Let's go ahead and start with the blockade of the blockade. Let's put this up here on the screen after the failed negotiations in Islamabad. So there you have it. The meeting went well. Most points were agreed to, but the only point that really mattered, nuclear was not effective. Immediately, the United States Navy, the finest in the world would begin the process of blockading any and all ships trying to enter or leave the Straits of Hormuz. At some point, we will reach an all being allowed to go in, all being allowed to go out basis. But Iran, was not allowed that to happen. This is incomprehensible.

I'm merely saying there may be a mine out there somewhere. The bottom line is that there will be a U.S. Navy blockade, which is going to be implemented as of 10 a.m. Eastern time here in the United States. Donald Trump also phoned into Fox News to elaborate on this blockade. Let's take a listen. Tell us what you're trying to accomplish with this blockade, sir. All in, all out. Yep.

It's called all in and all out. There'll be a time when we'll have them all come in and all come out, but it won't be a percentage. It won't be a friend of yours, like a country that's your ally or a country that's your friend is all or nothing. And that won't be in too long a distance. No, we're just bringing the ships up. We've got a lot of ships that we're bringing them up. We think that numerous countries are going to be helping us with this also. But we're putting on a complete blockade.

We're not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like and not people. that they don't like or whatever it is. It's going to be all or none, and that's the way it is. And it'll be, you saw what we did with Venezuela, it'll be something very similar to that, but at a higher level. All or none, although, you know, even the United States Central Command as a very late last night, they put out a explanation that actually this will just be a blockade of Iranian ships only. The Persian Gulf ships, all the other types of ships would be allowed through.

However, Iran is going to blockade those ships. So that does actually mean an all-out blockade. Outside of close allies. Outside of very close allies. Yeah, well, this is the big question. So 40% of the oil that moves through the Straits of Hormoos is Chinese. Are we going to just be blowing up Chinese tankers? Something makes me think that's not going to happen. A really bad idea. Oh, it would be horrible. Every sort of level, including the fact, listen, we already know with the Chinese that they have, sorry, no pun intended, a Trump card, which is, you know, when we went to war with them economic war through the tariffs, they were like, that's great. You don't get. access to our rare earth minerals. And very quickly, Trump caved intelligently and was like, you know, the stupid part was the threat to begin with, not realizing the sort of cards that they held in his sort of parlance. And very quickly, they forced him to realize that they had a much stronger position. And that central leverage point obviously still remains. The other thing that's very interesting here

is, you know, Trump apparently didn't contemplate at all that they would be able to close the Strait of Hormuz or control the Strait of Hermes. He thought this thing would be wrapped in three days, that the regime would collapse and he'd be Victoria's blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, I think he genuinely believed that. So he didn't think through this part at all. Now, military strategists obviously did. This is something that's been contemplated for a long time. It's not clear that they contemplated the situation where Iran wouldn't close the Strait of Hormuz. They would just control it and get to pick and choose. Now, from the U.S. perspective, the good part of that is it means that oil is still flowing into the global markets in some significant quantities. So it eases

some of the price pressure on global oil and it are gas pumps here in the U.S. The bad part of that is it means that Iran continues to do what they want and make money hand over fist. So if you're serious about actually completely choking this off, well, yeah, that's going to damage Iran some in terms of the revenue that they're bringing in. But it's also going to ratchet up the economic pressure on the U.S. And obviously our landscape is we have a population that doesn't support this at all that doesn't want to be fighting this war that doesn't want to be paying more money at the gas pumps.

So it's a very confusing move. And then you add to that the question, okay, well, what if an Indian ship come? What if a Chinese ship comes? Are you really going to make this a world war by attacking the ships from these nations powerful nations? In terms of the implementation, he's saying that we're not going to allow any Iranian ships through. Well, if Iran allows an Indian ship through and they try.

charge them a toll, and then the U.S. doesn't blockade them, then the net effect is actually still the same. There's also a breaking update this morning. Iran has just countered saying a U.S. blockade with a warning on ports. And it is saying that if its ports are threatened, that that means that any port in an allied nation will also be threatened, effectively saying, okay, you blockade our ports, then we will destroy all of the ports in the Persian Gulf, which has been their Trump card as well. And they've also directly threatened as a result of this, the Bob El Manda abstray, which is on the other side and the hoofies could, you know, could restart their operations. It's a mess. And let's just talk high level. Like, what is this about? The president ultimately failed in the negotiations with Islamabad. And let's be very clear here. J.D. J.D. J. Vance had to call Trump some six to seven times while he was in Islamabad. Effectively he was dispatched there with no real ability to have some sort of a mandate or ability to make a deal. He has to constantly call Donald Trump. The Iranian. have come out and put out multiple statements. They were close to some sort of memorandum of understanding

until Trump shifted the goalpost at the last minute. This is a red line that Donald Trump has drawn, which is entirely ridiculous, which says no enrichment of any kind, which would be surrender for the nation of Iran. And they could never maintain even sort of latent nuclear deterrent. They do not want to end up like Gaddafi, would you? And so they see very clearly, they're like, this is worth going to war over because giving this up is actually the end of our regime after we've been attacked twice by this nation under the cover of diplomacy. You also have Trump, who has moved the goalposts so many different times, he could sign this. They could give up their enrichment and they could bomb and destroy them, not to mention the Israelis. Remember, zero enrichment is an Israeli demand, which was adopted by the president of the United States.

It was never, never a real demand from the president, even going back into June. So whenever they say no nuclear weapon, what they mean is, no enrichment, again, of any kind, which is genuinely vital to their security deterrence. I'm not endorsing it. I'm saying this is reality at this point. And the Iranians, from their perspective, they believe that their position will only be strengthened over time because the economic pain will ratchet up on the U.S. The political pressure will increase, especially as we get closer to the midterms. So they look at this and they're like, okay, you are demanding things that are not acceptable

and that don't make sense, given the strength of the Iranian position here and the relative weakness of the American position. So, you know, Trump was not willing to accept the demands from the Iranians and the, you know, that would reflect the actual reality of what's been demonstrated in terms of the power balance in this war because he finds it too humiliating. Okay, well, then what are you going to do? You know, ending the war is too humiliating for him. The status quo is too painful, so it's very hard to see what ends up happening. We're going to talk to Trita Parsi in a little bit. He believes that what's most likely, or at least what I heard in his last interview, maybe he's changed his assessment. He believes what's most likely is that we don't return to a full war.

There's a non-negotiated settlement that includes a new status quo with basically Iran continuing to control the Strait of Vermeuse and Israel doing effectively whatever Israel wants to do. That's the direction that he thinks things are going in. But let's be clear, if that is what happens here and you end up in this sort of like low-level conflict with a new status quo with the Strait of Hormuz, that's a disaster for the U.S. And it's certainly not going to return oil prices to what they were before this disastrous war started. Right. And then this is also a return to the quote, maximum pressure strategy. Maximum pressure, the idea is just a return to normal.

Trump both doesn't want to have to continue the war, but he doesn't want to. surrender and show the world that he got absolutely humiliated, so he's trying to do a blockade, but maximum pressure already failed. We already threw every sanction in the world at Iran. Now, this is just even more of a sanction with a naval blockade. Also, let's just say this, naval blockade is an active war, just so we're all very aware of that. Remember, when President Kennedy tried to blockade or blockaded Cuba, they had to call it a quarantine, because blockade literally is an act of war. So Congress, by the way, you're still allowed to get involved here if you want to. All of this just means that they're flailing about. They have really no idea what to do.

This is almost certainly going to shock the world oil markets, but beyond even the market, because at this point I think they're delusional. The global supply of oil is radically shrinking, radically shrinking every single week that this continues. This is still a closure, even in those couple of days where this quote straight was open. It was barely open at all, a couple of ships. Return to normalcy was vital as of three or four weeks ago. We are all. already in demand destruction territory. Massive damage to U.S. allies in Asia. And $4 gas is now going to be ever present in our lives,

at least for the next couple of months, absent a serious and shocking event. So let's go then to A3. Here is Trump saying he predicts that they'll come back to the negotiating table. Let's take a listen. Death to this, death. And I make one statement, they say, oh, such a big deal.

Let me tell you, that statement got them to the bargaining table. And they haven't left. They haven't left the bargaining table. I predict they come back and they give us everything we want. And I told my people, I want everything. I don't want 90%. I don't want 95%. I told them, I want everything. Well, and what they want. They have no cards. Maria, Maria. Yep. They have no cards. Their Navy is gone. Their Air Force is gone. Totally gone.

They have nothing. They have no ships. 158 ships are at the bottom of the sea. Good ones. Good ones. New. The Soleimani, they had one called the Salamani. It was taken out by one of our tiger sharks, by one of our rapidly moving submarines. It's amazing. Our military is so good. Do you know our military is a 94% approval rating now? Well, Congress has a 14%. The media has a 12%. When I started, the media had a 92% approval rating. Now they're down to 14%. Wow. And I'm very proud of it because they're very dishonest. Okay, so that's where we're at right now.

I mean, look, is literally delusional. And let's continue then to seize the damage that we took in this war. A genuinely stunning image. Let's put this one up here on the screen from A4. This was reported by the guys over at the war zone. They do incredible, like, military reporting. And they're showing here a KC-135 tanker that is covered in shrapnel patches seen landing in the U.K.

So you could actually see all of those different holes that were patched, all over the plane. If you ever seen that meme about World War II fires actually is kind of reminiscent of that. But the amount of shrapnel, clearly, that this has taken, shows that Iran, you know, very, they very much had the capability to inflict damage on very strategic assets. So they played their asymmetric hand really, really well. I was talking this weekend with a friend who, longtime military experience. And I was asking the Straits of Hormuz question. I'm like, you guys had 40 years to plan with this. How is this possible? He's like, dude, it was the drones. Like, at the end of the day, we just didn't pay enough attention to the Ukraine and Russia

conflict. We did not realize how much the drone threat was going to radically change the equation. They really believed in the old days that all they had to do is they could use those planes to take out, you know, those small boats, the IRGC, and that they could shock and awe in the beginning, take out the ballistic missile and anti-ship missile capacity. And they'd probably be good to go. They'd have that ability. But the carriers and all the other, you know, all the other stuff was never able to get in range because of the drone threat. And on top of that, you're taking all these strategic damage to the U.S. oil, to the oil assets of all of the Gulf. The drone threat has radically shifted warfare in a four to five different, in a four to five year period, to the

point where these aircraft carriers, they may just be obsolete. Like a lot of our multi-trillion dollar investments over the years, sometimes you just have to give up and be like, okay, we were wrong. It's over. It's over. Back to the drawing board. Yeah, well, and that raises another question, too, which is there's a reason why we pulled our aircraft carriers back further away from Iran because we couldn't be in range. So now are we going to bring them closer in for this blockade that creates tremendous risks as well? That is not a risk-free decision. So I think that's, you know, that's extraordinary analysis. And at the same time, you know, you have to ask a question of how serious they even were going into these negotiations while the thing was falling apart.

Art, Rubio and Trump were at a UFC event. We could put these images up on the screen. Trump apparently got booed there, by the way. It was a sign of his fall in popularity. Previously was treated like a king when he would go to these events. And so here you have the President of the United States and the Secretary of State. Like the one guy in the administration, there's Marco doing his like whatever that Miami area code. Rio 5.

Yeah, gang sign or whatever that is. Gang sign. Send him to Seacot. All right? Exactly. See caught. Check his tattoos. Anyway, they're out there having a good all time. And meanwhile, these negotiations are falling apart.

And so you have to ask, like, did they ever even intend for this to get anywhere? And then the other question is, you know, possible that this is all negotiating tactic. And they went in very blazze. And really with the plan of, okay, we're going to blow up the first round and then we're going to apply this additional pressure. And then maybe then we'll soften them up and we'll have a better. chance of striking some sort of a deal that's less than utterly humiliating. But the basic military landscape is still the same. It's still the same reality. You don't have a military option that's acceptable to you to open the Strait of Formuz. Your one attempt at going in on the ground at all,

whether it was for just a pilot rescue or whether there was something else going on there, yeah, you got your guy allegedly, but you did not, but you also had to blow up a whole bunch of aircraft on the ground. And it was not a success from that. perspective. So you realize that you've got a real problem there if you're going to put boots on the ground in mainland Iran or any of these islands, none of that reality has changed. So Trump thinks he can you know, bluster and threaten and cajole his way into getting a better deal. But the Iranians, I think, have long since stopped really listening to him and they pay attention to the things that he does, not the nonsense that he says. Let's think about the UFC thing is a perfect example.

This is why I genuinely believe that the talks war is kind of set to fail is if you dispatch a negotiator to the talks who has to then call you 10, you know, at the minimum what we know of is six plus times. And then Trump can constantly weigh in on this detail or that detail. And then you're at a fucking UFC of fight with the Secretary of State, the literal chief diplomat of the country. How real was this talk in the first place? In my opinion, look, this is pure speculation. This is my idea. Trump and Rubio were like, here's what we need to do. We need to show any of the internal dissenters in our cabinet and to the world that actual diplomacy. We tried it, but it totally failed. And then when it fails, we can go back to what we wanted to do in the first place. He's some sort of naval blockade. I don't know. At the very least, like, he's flailing.

If he really wanted negotiation, he would drop the Israeli line of zero enrichment. But he seems to believe it. And, you know, look, BB's up in his ear telling him about how. how we got to be doing this. Also, you know, Mark Levin, the entire neocon industrial complex, as you know, they're loyal to Trump when he's doing their bidding. This is the irony of it. With the moment he departs, as we showed everybody on our show when he announced ceasefire, they're furious and they're calling him, they're making all this propaganda. Oh, you still should nuke them. You should invade them. You can't let them humiliate you. So they're playing the

game. They're pressing him very, very hard. Again, the man has agency. I believe that this was basically set up to fail from the very beginning. Real peace talks don't happen this way. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you're you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice, Ms. Snellins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for.

Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Lesbian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police.

As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Americopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped Podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of post.

sodium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wag Ageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip. A Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals, and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire

for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here was the Vice President in Islamabad shortly after some 21 hours of talks basically announced they totally failed. Let's take a listen. We've been at it now for 21 hours, and we've had a number of substantive discussions with the Iranians.

That's the good news. The bad news is that we have not reached an agreement. And I think that's bad news for Iran much more than it's bad news for the United States of America. So we go back to the United States having not come to an agreement. We've made very clear what our red lines are, what things we're willing to accommodate them on and what things we're not willing to accommodate them on. And we've made that as clear as we possibly could. And they have chosen not to accept our terms. They have chosen not to accept our term. It's not even our turn. It's Trump's terms. Let's go to the next one. This is from Ghalabov, the chief negotiator on the Iranian side. He says, before the negotiations, I emphasize we have the necessary good faith and will, but due to the experiences of the two previous wars, we have no trust in the opposing side. My colleagues on the Iranian delegation, the Minab 168, raised forward-looking initiatives, but the opposing side ultimately failed to gain the trust of the Iranian delegation in this round of negotiation. Some people are taking note of that in this round of negotiations, keeping the door open to the future. He says, America has understood our logic and principles. Now it's time for it to decide whether it can earn our trust or not. We consider every mirror to be another method of authority diplomacy alongside

military struggle for upholding the rights of the Iranian nation. And we will not, for a moment, cease our efforts to consolidate the achievements of the 40 days of Iran's national defense. He continues that he is grateful for the efforts of our friendly and brotherly country, Pakistan, which continues to trying to push some sort of negotiations in the future. The foreign minister of Iran Arachi also spoke out. Let's put his tweet up there on the screen. He says, in intensive talks at the highest level in 47 years, Iran engaged with the U.S. in good faith to end the war. But when just inches away from an Islamabad memorandum of understanding, we encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts and blockade. Zero lessons learn. Goodwill begets goodwill. Enmity begets enmity.

And I do think that this confirms that Trump, you know, eventually they would try and work out something, which they thought was relatively reasonable. They called Trump. He's like, no, absolutely not. He decides to do some sort of a naval blockade. So that's where we are. As of right now, things could change. The oil markets are not responding in a way, which is, I think, going to force his hand entirely. Let me take a look at the stock futures. Stock futures are down 0.67% not terrible, right? Not great, but nothing, yeah, it's not

phenomenal, but nothing catastrophic by any means. Everybody still seems to think some sort of inevitable taco is going to happen, but I mean, from all the oil analysts and others that we've spoken to and all of the other stuff, the amount of storage, like the storage is dried up in the Gulf, they already

had to cut production, damage has been done to multiple different oil and gas facilities, the hold up on fertilizer and natural gas, and on what else with it, helium is already, you know, going to show up in the global supply chain. We will live with this for months. And even with the naval blockade,

CENTCOM announcing this morning, I was just taking a look that every ship in and out will be subject to U.S. inspection. So that's, I mean, this could be like Iraq in the 90s. We had a no-fly zone over Iraq in the 90s. This was a precursor to the war with Iraq, because they would always say, oh, Saddam violated the no-fly zone, whatever. But my point is just like that took billions of dollars.

It actually cost lives. It ended up being just some sort of permanent empire mission over Iraq for nothing, really, you know, after the Persian, after the original Gulf War. And this very much could be where Trump doesn't want to restart the war, but we just had this multi-billion dollar boondoggle, Straits of Hormuz situation. Iran can continue to suffer. It just seems like a nightmare,

the way around for us, for them, for the Persian Gulf countries as well. So that's where we are. I mean, I think he really doesn't want to restart the war because it was such a disaster. He doesn't really want to surrender either. Something's got a break. Maybe Iran will just start firing and again and then we'll go back to a hot war. It's very possible. Yeah. But if that happens, then it's nuke or ground troops. I don't see another way out. Yeah, there's a Wall Street Journal report that Trump's considering limited military strikes. There's no such thing. Yeah, exactly. And it's not like he's still under the illusion that he gets to completely control the escalation.

That's not the way that works. I mean, Iran has already demonstrated, like, okay, you go after our oil and gas infrastructure. We're going to hit the Gulf states. They have that capacity. Or, you know, you go after our businesses. We're going to hit your data centers in the region. They've already demonstrated that they're able to do that. There was another report this morning.

So Trump had said in that Maria Barteromo interview that he thought other countries were going to come and help with our blockade of the blockade. And so far, everyone's like, yeah, you're. you're on your own on this one. Britain has said no. Australia said no. Obviously, Spain said no. There's no other country that's been like,

us, we're on our way. We're going to come and help you out. So, I mean, that's the other piece here in terms of the pressure is we really don't have, outside of Israel, we really don't have any allies that are rushing to our defense. I guess you could put UAE in that camp as well now because the situation is so catastrophic

that they're like barely a country anyway. And then I think the original idea, probably of this blockade of the blockade is to put pressure on China so that China puts pressure on Iran. But if you're now saying, well, we're just going to block Iranian ships, well, that's not really going to put any pressure on China whatsoever. This is where the confusion is. So let me read you verbatim. This just came out like six minutes ago. Yeah. U.S. Central Command issues noticed to seefarers about the blockade. Warning any vessel going to or from Iran is subject to interception, diversion, and capture. The blockade encompasses the entirety of the Iranian coastline to include,

but not limited to ports and oil terminals. So that isn't just Iranian ships. Right. That is Chinese ships. Yeah. I mean, now we're in a different world, right? So think about how this goes. I mean, then if a Chinese ship shows up, are you actually going to fire on them? Like, what are you going to do? We're going to board a Chinese vessel? Right. This is, these are serious diplomatic incidents. I don't even, I don't know. I just think about it. And I think, I think, Can we, would the United States of America, would a U.S. merchant, marine, and or flagged vessel, except boarding and inspection through the Taiwan Strait? No. Like that, it's time to go at that point. Because then what does that mean? You control the strategic or the Straits of Malacca.

If the Chinese Navy just declares all of a sudden we are putting a cord in over Taiwan, all of us understand that is an act of war. I'm not saying we should go. But at that point, like, okay, we are in crisis. mode. You have declared literal, like basically annexation and total control of these waterways. And look, that is the purpose of the U.S. Navy. Do we all have confidence that we can actually do it at this point? Like, are we going to escalate from men all the way up? This is a serious, serious shot across the bow at them. And yeah, with the Chinese, I mean, they've called our bluff every single time. They did, let's give them credit. They actually worked pretty hard to try and get a ceasefire. They pushed Iran to the table. The question is, is will they buckle?

But the other problem is, if we have some sort of diplomatic incident, remember, the Trump-Shea summit is sometime next month. We don't have a date. We're really going to blow it all up over Iran, of all places, right? Like, we don't even get much oil out of this place. Like, that is why the whole thing is so crazy. If we just, like, think about how much better off we would be on the February 27th status quo. How my, it was so much better.

It was a paradise back then comparatively. $2.90. $2.90. Gasoline. Iran just didn't have a nuclear weapon. They actually had a leader who really didn't want a nuclear weapon, whereas now they really might have a leader

who wants a nuclear weapon. They were very conciliatory in those negotiations. The Omani Prime Minister said, like, there was a deal. I mean, they had gone way further than they even went during the JCPOA. And Trump could have done that. It could have claimed mission accomplished.

Look, I was able to get a deal. Obama never did. Our maximum pressure campaign is a success. And they were too weak and lame to be able to do what I can. and do our deal onto Cuba or whatever next nightmare he has in store for us. But instead, he decided that he needed this grand, glorious military victory, and instead it is turned into an absolute total disaster.

And just zooming out, look, we're already in a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine. Now, and I wouldn't yet call this a proxy war with China, but we are very close to effectively being in that situation. It only takes a few of these incidents before you're also now in a proxy war with China. And China's been assisting the Iranians more than had previously been reported. That's part of why they were in the position they were to pressure Iran to come to the negotiating table at a time when a lot of the IRGC was very opposed to even starting negotiations at this point and thought that there needed to be a lot more pain. So, you know, China, again, like at a time when obviously our military supplies are very low and we need to resupply, they control a lot of the critical supply lines we would need to be able to accomplish. that. And so they really have us in a bit of a chokehold here, which is what the Trump

administration has already discovered. So I don't know where this thing goes, but it's hard to see any sort of resolution that is going to be positive whatsoever. The best we can help for at this point is that the first round of negotiations was basically for show and to bluster and, you know, demonstrate how tough we are and that we'll walk away from the table, blah, blah, blah, and that, but that they are willing to come back and get serious about making a deal with Iran that reflects the reality that the Iranians demonstrated a lot more capability than what we expected them to. Yep, that's exactly right. Last thing, let's put on this warning from the IRGCA8. Let's put it on the screen. Iran's Revolutionary Guard has warned any miscalculated move

will trap the enemy in the deadly whirlpool of the Straits of Hormuz after Trump ordered a U.S. naval blockade of the strategic waterway. So you can see. They continue to have that capacity. Remember, they have the small boats. Also, remember this. Trump said that there were no mines in the Straits of Hormuz, and now they're like, oh, well, we have to do mind clearing. So there are minds in the Straits of Hormuz, just so we all understand. There were a lot of sciops over the weekend. But there's so many fascinating things here. It's like, oh, so there actually are mines in the Straits of Hormuz, so they did have that capacity. All of these Iranians, you know, oh, CIA estimate comes out. Half of the Iranian missiles are still operable. They're digging them out.

Iran's national media reporting this morning that they're redoing all of their railway, right? It's like, oh, it's not so easy, is it? Turns out, as we, I mean, we've learned these lessons 100 years ago. Yeah, you can bomb a railway. Unless you've got a general Sherman, this is 200 years almost at this point, sitting there and, you know, forming the metal, the Sherman necktie. Yes, actually, it's very easily to replace if it's only under aerial bombardant, as we saw in World War II. So this is the problem that we have strategically. It's either ground invasion or its nuclear weapon or it is actually diplomacy at this point, which is basically surrender.

I'm just not sure that anybody is there yet. And that's the unfortunate lesson of history. So we've got Treat to Parsi standing by. Let's get to it. Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart.

And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth.

You doctored this particular test twice in someone's, correct? I doctored the test once. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case. I wanted people to be able to see what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Gregalespian and Michael Marantini.

My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young. This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news. that Ameriopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona.

Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade? Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels, suddenly popping up every year. He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wagageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory.

I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport. In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. For more on the so far failed negotiations, we are joined by Treatza Parsi of the Quincy Institute. Great to see you, sir. Good to see you.

Good to be with you guys. Yeah, of course. So let's go ahead and put this first element up on the screen from Barack Ravid, which claims to be the U.S. red lines from the U.S. red lines from the negotiations, according to him from a U.S. official, they said ending all uranium enrichment, dismantling all major nuclear enrichment facilities, retrieve highly enriched uranium, except a broader peace, security and de-escalation framework that includes regional allies and funding for terrorist proxies, Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthis, fully open the Strait of Hormuz charging no tolls for passage. One gap in the talks was the amount of Iranian frozen funds that will be released per source with knowledge. Your reaction to these purported U.S.

red lines and also where we are right now in terms of any sort of resolution to the war. If these are the American red lines and if these were the actual negotiation positions of the delegation in Islamabad, then I don't think there was any need for any negotiations at all. Those are dead on arrival. The U.S. side knows it. I don't think this is accurately reflected in the talks. I think also there's a problem in which certain, there's a diversity of views within the administration and various people are trying to influence the final position by leaking these type of things and making them the reality. I do think also that in the talks, there were a lot of progress made, including on the nuclear issue, but at last moment, there was a shift on the

American side, whether that was part of a negotiation tactic or whether that is yet another example of shifting goalposts, which unfortunately has become the hallmark of the hallmark of this administration's negotiations with Iran remains to be seen. Yeah, Dr. Parsi, let's talk about that because the foreign minister, Arachi, he came out and said, we had a memorandum of understanding basically ready to go. Then the shifting goalposts started. Now, I seem to think that's an allusion to the nuclear enrichment as in a red line of zero enrichment. Let's be clear about where that came from. It appears to be in Israel demand. Now, what's your view there of how that demand enters in the last minute? Is it Israel

calling Trump saying this is unacceptable? How exactly did this go? How do the Iranians view their negotiations? So we know that in the previous negotiations, this is a shift that occurred as a result of the Israelis pushing very, very hard for it and using their echo chamber in Washington, etc. to kind of push Trump in that direction. And that's part of the reason, a critical reason, as to why the talks failed. Because, you know, the only reason why the talks even began in the first place was because Trump kept on saying, my only red line is nuclear weapons, not nuclear enrichment or nuclear capability.

Had he said from the outset that his red line is nuclear capability and enrichment, I don't think the Iranians would have come to the table in the first place. But once at the table, this shifted as a result of pressure from Israel. Whether that is the case here or not, again, remains to be seen. I can see a scenario in which because of progress having been made, the USAID kind of pulls back, knowing very well that there's still another week or so left of the ceasefire, sees what else it can get by adding some pressure.

And then if it gets something else, and even if it doesn't, it will have formed a narrative of said that the Iranians caved because the US threatened to close this trade of war or the Persian Gulf as a whole with the naval blockade, etc. So a lot of these things I think should be read as tactics within a negotiation rather than necessarily an end to the negotiations because it's very important to keep two things in mind. Neither side has said that the talks are over, none of them. And neither side has gone back to firing at each other. So the ceasefire is holding. And if the ceasefire is holding, that means that the negotiations, at least nominally, may still be alive.

particularly mindful of the fact that neither one of them have said this is over with, we're not going to meet again. And even J.D. Vance's speech or presser, he said, we have made our terms clear. The Iranians need to accept that or something like that. He didn't say it's over. Yeah, that is a very important point. We talked some about the U.S.'s purported red lines, at least. What is your sense of what the Iranian red lines may be? I think on the Iranian side, it's actually quite clear. That may be part of the challenge they have in their negotiations. They're not going to give up to control of Strait of Hormuz, but they can consider various arrangements. The U.S. I did make some proposal on that. The Iranians rejected

those. I do hope that the Iranians see a value in doing something with the U.S. on this, because I think it will be very important for Trump as part of his narrative, but also because it may actually stabilize the situation if the U.S. is in on it in some fashion. So you're talking about actual sort of sharing the toll with the U.S. that sort of proposal. It could be different. The U.S. proposal was sharing a toll. I think it could be other things. The sharing the toll seems to be something that at least the Iranians initially rejected.

It could be other things, you know, what the currency would be in which the tolls would take place in. It could be that the Iranians would use a percentage of the toll revenues not to give it to the U.S., but to buy things from the U.S. So I think there's various ideas, et cetera, that can be further explored on that. And I think if it ends up becoming some arrangement in which both sides are involved in it one way or another, it can help stabilize the situation because the critical thing is to make sure that the strait opens. The Iranian objective is not to close the straits. The Iranian objective is to use the control of the straits in order to reestablish economic relations with countries that have left Iranian market. The South Koreans have already come to Iran.

The Japanese are about to do their own negotiation. These are countries in Asia that used to have extensive economic relations with Iran, but were chased out of the market because of the sanctions because the U.S. pressure on them was very intense. Now the Iranians are pressuring them back in through the Strait of Hormuz. It's not to close it. Yeah, this is... But I think it's...

There's one thing I think it's very important to understand it, in which the Iranians may actually have ended up in a relatively weaker position, than they were in before. See, the United States or Trump could not end the war without some sort of arrangement with Iran because the Iranians had a say in it. And this kind of forced them into a situation in which he had to ask for negotiations.

But now that the Iranians have accepted a ceasefire, I think the tables have turned a little bit. The United States can now actually walk away from these talks and end up in a scenario in which the Iranians are controlling this trade, which is, you know, from the U.S. perspective, not good, but it's not devastating. It's much more problematic for other countries, particularly the GCC countries.

The Iranians don't get any sanctions relief, but the U.S. doesn't go back to war. And it kind of washes his hands of this whole thing, but just walks away. Doesn't give anything further, doesn't get a deal, but it's out of the war, which I think is Trump's critical objective. Oil prices would come down, etc.

But then what does Israel do in that scenario? Let me get to that one second. But the thing is the Iranians want more than that. They want a framework agreement on how to manage the relationship between the United States and Iran. They want to move beyond the 47 years of enmity. They think that they finally have leveraged to be able to meet the US face to face and get that. And that would, of course, entail a dramatic amount of sanctions relief, but also concessions from their end on the nuclear issue. From the Iranian side, that would be a much more valuable outcome from this to make sure that they actually end this situation with the United States

and get some sort of agreement, reestablish some economic relations. That's something the Iranians want. The U.S. doesn't need this. The U.S. could walk away and would end up in still not an ideal situation, but not a terrible situation. The Iranians could also walk away, but they would lose more if they walk away. And this, I think, has in some ways changed the dynamics because prior to the ceasefire situation was opposite.

The United States could not walk away without an agreement from Iran. Right. So what does that mean then? You know, Chris asked about Israel. So how would – so if they did walk away, it would seem logical then that Iran would actually have to resume firing because that would be the only thing that would draw the United States back to a situation where it had to reach this memorandum of understanding. Depends. If the Israelis go back to war with Iran without the United States, then the Iranians undoubtedly will strike at Israel.

And it will not be like before. They were not going to go into a scenario in which the Israelis slowly but shortly, constantly increase the type of, I mean, Gaza or a Lebanese scenario in which the Israelis gradually increased their attacks on Lebanon or on Gaza while the ceasefire is still in place. They will not accept that. So the slightest thing from the Israelis, the Iranians are going to strike back very, very hard. Then the question is, if the war between Israel and Iran resumed, first of all, can the Israelis manage that without the United States being involved?

I have my severe doubts about that. both from a military standpoint, from an intelligence standpoint, the amount of help the Israelis need, but also from a public opinion standpoint. Will the Israeli public go along with further war with Iran in which they do take a lot of hits themselves, but without the U.S. being part of the war? And I think that can change dramatically. It could also create a scenario in which the Israelis will, of course, do their outmost to get the U.S. back into the war. And that will be a real test.

if Trump has managed to pull out of this war, cuts his losses on the straits, but then goes back in because the Israelis wanted. Again, I have a hard time seeing that happening, but then again, I was wrong about him going into this war in the first place because it was so utterly clear in my view that it would be a disaster, yet he did it. But you can also see a scenario in which the U.S. doesn't go back in, and then the Iranians have managed to achieve something else, which is they have truly separated the U.S. from Israel.

That would be a huge strategic win for the Iranians, which may be part of the reason why these Israelis actually won't go into the war again with the Iranians, knowing very well that that might be an outcome from that move. That's interesting. Let's talk a little bit about China's role in this. We can put B3 up on the screen. This is some reporting for the New York Times showing that China was taking more active role than previously known in Iran. American intelligence agencies have obtained information.

China in recent weeks may have sent a shipment of shoulder-fired missiles to Iran for its conflicts. They say it's not definitive that the shipment was sent. There's no evidence. The Chinese missiles have yet been used, but even a debate in Beijing over sending missiles to Iran suggests the degree that China sees itself as having a stake in the conflict. Intelligence agencies have assessed that China is secretly taking an active stance in the war, allowing some companies to ship chemicals, fuel and components that can be used in military production to Iran for the war.

Obviously, we take with a grain of salt, anything that any intelligence agency says. But there's no doubt China has vested interest in the war. the resolution of this conflict. There's also reporting that China was involved in pushing Iran to the negotiating tables. So how do you think that they're viewing where we are right now? So first of all, as you said, we have to take all of these different intelligence reports leaking to media without much scrutiny with a pinch of salt. But I think also we have to take the definition of China helping Iran somewhat carefully. For the Chinese to continue to sell stuff to Iran, including chemical things, is not from the Chinese perspective in any way, shape or form

them actually helping Iran in the war. Similar to the fact that the United States keeps on selling a lot of things, even short of weapons to Israel, even its selling of the weapons, it doesn't necessarily view as a provocative move. Imagine, you know, accusations that just because the United States were to sell other type of things to Israel during a war, that that would be active support for the war from the U.S. side. So I think the definitional issue is quite important to understand it. Having said that, I do believe that the Chinese have provided the Iranians with intelligence and other measures without getting directly involved in this. It's still way below any threshold that would really justify the U.S. doing anything in particular. The Chinese have

an interest in getting this resolved ASAP. There is this view in Washington that as soon as the US shoots itself in the foot that benefits China. There is truth to that, undoubtedly. But it is a simplistic black and white view of the Chinese. The Chinese, more than anything else, want to make sure that there is stability in the Persian Gulf, they are much more affected by high oil prices and by the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf than the U.S. is. And if this continues to become a real debacle on the energy markets, the Chinese are going to suffer tremendously from that.

And there's no win in that for them, even if the U.S. itself is also hurting itself through that process. So I'm not surprised that the Chinese potentially have played a role in the background and trying to get an agreement. I think they would want to keep their fingerprints off of it. They don't want any responsibility for what is going on. There's one thing to help. There's another thing to actually become a partner openly in this.

And then suddenly, you shared a responsibility for the outcome instead of Trump, who started this war. So I think the Chinese are going to be very careful about that. But behind the scenes, I'm sure they're going to do things to try to make sure that it goes in a direction that benefits them, which is for this issue to be resolved. Right. And then my question here is on the blockade. So let's say that the scenario that you laid out.

happens. Trump walks, but he keeps a naval blockade. Is that a tolerable situation for Iran? How long could they really survive without doing something radical to try and change the status quo? You know, the Iranians are actually prepared themselves for this scenario, including having a lot of oil outside of the Persian Gulf already. Moreover, I think it's important to recognize that in this scenario I'm talking about in which the U.S. walks away, there would likely be more economic pressure on Iran, but I'm not so sure it would be that naval blockade, not necessarily at least in its full form, perhaps a nominal one. Sure.

But just think about it. The Iranis are selling oil to India and to China. What is the U.S. going to do? They're going to stop those shipments. They think that's a punishment of Iran. That's a punishment of China and India. That's a direct confrontation with the Chinese and the Indians and other countries in Asia that are buying this oil.

So it is not as simple as to believe that this is just some sort of a pressure on Iran. It will be pressure on Iran. But more than anything else, it will be pressure on other countries that actually have strong relations with the U.S. and on the energy markets, anything that right now takes energy off of markets will push up all prices. That will lead to higher gas prices in the United States, which dramatically backfires on Trump and on the Republican Party and the midterms. On top of that, if the U.S. goes really hard on this issue, then there's a high likelihood that the Houthis will step in and they will close off the Gulf of Aden.

and there won't be any ships going through there either. That suddenly means that another 12% in addition to the 20% of the flow of oil that has been compromised because of Iran's current control of the straits would also then go off the market. And that will dramatically push up oil prices. Moreover, in order for this to be workable for the U.S., even if the U.S. is capable of absorbing those hits, it would require that this goes on for some time. This is not a quick thing.

This is not something in which you do it and suddenly the Iranians came. And then that raises the question, who has most tolerance for this? The United States and not just the United States, but Donald Trump in his political situation or the Iranians. I think this is yet another one of these examples in which, yes, the U.S. can escalate,

but the Iranian counter-escalation is far more painful to the U.S. than the U.S.'s own escalation against Iran initially is against the Iran. on. My last question for you, Trita, and you set us up well for our next block, which is an oil analyst is going to join us to talk about what he's seeing in the markets right now. But what about the role of Saudi Arabia and UAE who have signaled they want the war to continue? All the indications are that they're pushing in that direction. UAE has even potentially already, but

certainly signaled their willingness to join the war as a combatant themselves. You know, what sort of messages do you think they'll be sending to President Trump? So there's a lot of conflicting reporting about Saudi Arabia in which it is at times pushing for this and then there's a reporting that says that it is not. I think the UAE is a little bit more clear, but I think it's stunningly clear. If the US pulls itself out of the war, what is the UAE going to do? The UAE is in a very, very dire situation. It has made a huge mistake in my view, making itself a frontline state against Iran within Israel's enmity with Iran because of its signing on to the Abrams Accord. Its own problems with Iran were far more resolvable than the problems between

Israel and Iran. But now it is beholden to Israel's enmity with Iran, while it itself is only 50 or so kilometers away from Iran at its closest point to one of the Iranian islands, whereas Israel is 1,200 or whatever kilometers away from Iran. So I think this was a huge mistake. But it should also be said, there's huge differences within the GCC. And some of the GCC countries are privately very happy, to see that the UAE has been hit very hard in this war, and that this has really set back the UAE's influence within the region and within the GCC itself. Very interesting. Well, everyone should take note of the fact at a time when the Abraham Accords were being

praised as this landmark peace deal. You were sounding the alarm and saying this could actually increase tension and division, and it was far from the sort of utopia that it was being portrayed as Treata Parsi. Always great to have you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Canadian women are looking for more.

More out of themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.

So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us. Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on IHartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. In 2023, former bachelor star Clayton Eckerd found himself at the center of a paternity scandal. The family court hearings that followed revealed glaring inconsistencies in her story. This began a years-long court battle to prove the truth. You doctored this particular test twice in so-ins, correct? I doctored the test ones. It took an army of internet detectives to crack the case.

I wanted people to be able to see. what their tax dollars were being used for. Sunlight's the greatest disinfected. They would uncover a disturbing pattern. Two more men who'd been through the same thing. Greg Alesspian and Michael Marantini. My mind was blown. I'm Stephanie Young.

This is Love Trap. Laura, Scottsdale Police. As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Ladies and gentlemen, breaking news at Maricopa County as Laura Owens has been indicted on fraud charges. This isn't over until justice is served in Arizona. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Why hasn't a woman formally participated in a Formula One race weekend in over a decade?

Think about how many skills they have to develop at such a young age. What can we learn from all of the new F1 romance novels suddenly popping up every year? He still smelled of podium champagne and expensive friction. And how did a 2023 event called Wag Ageddon change the paddock forever? That day is just seared into my memory. I'm culture writer and F1 expert Lily Herman, and these are just a few of the questions I'm tackling on no grip, a Formula One culture podcast that dives into the under-explored pockets of the sport.

In each episode, a different guest and I will go deeper into the wacky mishaps, scandals and sagas, both on the track and far away from it, that have made F1 a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years. Listen to no grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Joining us now is a great friend of the show, Rory Johnson. He's the founder of Commodity Context, a fantastic substack, which we'll have a link down in the description. Thanks for joining us again, Rory. Appreciate your time. Thanks for having me this morning. So you were reposted by the presidents of the United States, seemingly bragging about policy.

Maybe we can turn the tables here a little bit. if he'll repost this segment, the president announcing a full naval blockade of Iran. Let's put this up here on the screen, effectively announcing that they will not allow any vessel to enter an Iranian port. So CENTCOM clarifying this morning that any vessel that is headed for Iran is subject to, and I want to get this language correct, interception, diversion, and capture literally any vessel, not just an Iranian vessel. So, Rory, you're our resident oil analyst. what does this mean for the global oil markets? Yeah, so just for context here,

one of the things that I think is important to keep in mind, one of the weird things about this crisis thus far is that if you had asked any oil analyst, myself included three months ago, if, you know, Iran was going to close the trade of Hormuz, would Iran still be exporting oil? And the answer would have been obviously no, right? That would have been something

that obviously in such a situation, the United States or whatever kind of opposing party would have blockaded those shipments. And the strange thing is that, throughout the crisis, Iran has continued to export its oil. Not only export its oil, but at higher prices and thanks to U.S. Treasury sanctions repeal to more and more consumers at lower and lower discount. So they've actually been making kind of great money out of this process thus far. And one of the things, and now, you know, and now Trump is trying to remediate that and saying,

okay, now we're going to cut off the flow of oil after six weeks. So I think the question here now is, you know, the first Iranian tanker or the first Iranian ship, I, their direction to test this blockade is going to set up this next step for escalation because thus far Iran has generally withheld or held back from attacking production assets across the Middle East or export and loading infrastructure. If they now can't export their oil, maybe that's the next thing up for grabs should, let's say, the United States fire on or seize an Iranian tanker. Let me go ahead and put guys C7 up on the screen. I wanted to get your reaction to this, and this was written up by drop site from publicly available information.

They say Iran has about 174 million barrels of oil in floating storage that a blockade would not touch. And you can see all of the details there. They say over 90% is bound for China, carried largely by ghost fleet tankers running dark, 129 tankers linked to Iranian crude, currently sailing dark according to windward. U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports won't intercept oil that is already at sea, and then it goes through a list of where these tankers are located. You know, how does this factor into your calculation? Because it seems that Iran has somewhat prepared for a scenario similar to this.

That's exactly right. And I follow a group called tanker trackers. And what they've noted for a couple days now is that if this should happen, Iran has basically positioned a large kind of flotilla of floating storage just outside the Gulf of them on, specifically that would allow it to continue servicing these clients, at least for some time, should the actual straight be blockaded. Now, obviously, the United States Navy is quite sophisticated, quite large and quite capable. We saw this during January of this past year, or earlier this year, time flies. But when they were kind of blockading Venezuelan exports and

chasing down Venezuelan tankers across the Atlantic, clearly it's a question of the, of how intense they're planning on enforcing this. They're able to, again, But this question of, you know, is this just the latest kind of jawboning or kind of, you know, threat from Trump? Or are they actually going to follow through with us? At this stage, six weeks into war, it's very, very difficult to kind of handicap that. Because, yeah, it seems like yes, but who knows? You know, we could be an hour away from Trump, you know, posting that that peace has been found in the Middle East and oil is going to drop another kind of 15 bucks a barrel. And this is the challenge we face.

As no one actually knows what's going to happen next. All the while, 13 million barrels a day of production remain shut it in the world. the Gulf and the world hemorrhages that volume of crude every day the straight remains closed. And thus far, the strait is not only closed, but now it's even more closed than it was at the beginning of the weekend. Yes, that's what I wanted to focus on with you is you were warning to us a couple of weeks ago. If we're in this scenario, the amount of destruction just inevitably in terms will lead to demand destruction.

Now, the straight, like you said, is not just closed, it's even more close. If we take some Iranian oil offline and there's not any Persian Gulf oil that continues to move through. Let's put the market just on our side, because maybe they will catch up to supplies. Supply-wise, what are we talking about? Are all the shortage conversations, jet fuel, et cetera? Is that back on now?

Is that still a reality? Like, what's that starting to start to look like? It's normally still on it. It never changed, right? I think that's the issue is that right now, so again, just for context, roughly of the 20 million barrels a day of previously kind of previous flow

that was traveling through Homoos every day, roughly 7 million barrels of that has been offset by rerouting. The Saudi East-West pipeline, kind of Iran's flow continuing, et cetera, et cetera. But, I mean, 13 million barrels can't exit the Gulf and has been forcibly shut in. That's the barrels that we're losing kind of every single day. And right now, you know, thus far in the crisis, we've lost roughly more than 400 million barrels, barrels that we're going to be produced this year that now just aren't. The longer this goes on, you know, you quickly approach a billion barrels, particularly with the

necessary ramp back up. So yeah, this is going to continue, you know, the longer this goes on, you're going to need to fill that hole because 13 million barrels a day. Now 15, actually, if you block Iranian flow, because that was one of the offsets previously. So 15 million barrels a day. There's no supply source in the world that can fill that. So if the straight remains closed, if this is, again, a month or two more of what we're talking about, you're going to need to see prices skyrocket in order to forcibly destroy demand. We're already beginning to see shortages across a bunch of different regions of the world. Asian Airlines are canceling flights.

You've seen talk of rationing jet fuel in southern Italy. The EU broadly, you know, European jet fuel suppliers have basically said that they can't commit to supply jet fuel into May. That probably through April, this is going to be good. Like there's buffer here. This is what the inventories are for. But as we get into May and again, into kind of peak travel season, June and July, that's when these suppliers can,

no longer guarantee shipments, which means that airlines that are trying to book flights, you know, or trying to plan flights, they're not going to be able to have a bunch of friends that are trying to like plan European vacations. And they're like, Rory, will we have jet fuel? Will there be flights to get back? And I'm like, I don't know. And right? And you never would have pictured a moment where I'm like, I don't know if Europe would have jet fuel. That's the kind of situation we're now in right now. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, it's 9, 10 a.m. right now. I'm looking at the oil prices, you know, just above $100 a barrel. And what's your sense of whether that reflects reality or whether these markets are still somewhat delusional or, you know, pricing

in, okay, we expect Trump to somehow magically resolve this in the next short period. I would say definitely, I don't know if I was going so far as delusional, but certainly sanguine, overly optimistic relative to where I see the situation now. One thing that's kind of been a hallmark of this crisis throughout, given this kind of chronic expectation, this persistent expectation, that this will end any day now and that, you know, flow through the straight form of this will resume tomorrow. is that most of the kind of pricing pain, the pricing pressure is being felt at the very, very front of the curve in what we call like extreme backwardation or term structure at the

front of the curve, the shape of the futures curve. And that extends into the physical and spot market. So right now, even though Brent Crude right now is trading at, you know, just over $100 a barrel for June delivery futures, WTI, which is trading in for May, is actually trading at a premium to that, which is weird at the front of the curve. And dated Brent, which is the spot benchmark, is trading. you know, north of 130, and then the physical delivery of these various actual crude cargoes is something at $20, $25 at a premium to dated Brent.

So many of these physical crudes are trading at over $150 delivered. Wow. And that's the kind of thing that eventually futures need to recognize that. But thus far, you know, the White House has been very successful in kind of managing expectations that this conflict is going to end any moment. And who's to blame traders that, you know, can't get too long because then they're going to get blown in their positions with a $15 a barrel, you know, tweet. It's a very strange market to trade. Roy, can you just transfer some of that into gas prices? What is that? So let's say if it,

if we caught up, what did you say, 150 a barrel, what does that look like at the pump nationally for the U.S.? Well, what's interesting, actually, is that physically, you know, well, you know, U.S. consumers are basically going to be paying spot prices for gasoline. So they actually will be paying these prices rather than June delivery, right? We all consume in physical spot markets, even though the futures price is trying to continue to handicap this forward. So yeah, you're going to see national average prices at this pace easily outstrip $5 a gallon on route to $6 a gallon should this continue by June easily.

And I think that's just gasoline. Diesel at this stage is trading at a decent premium to that. So you're going to see all time, you've already seen kind of all time highs reached in California. You're going to see there across the entire continent to the United States. Yeah, we're this morning, it looks like $4.13 is the national average per AAA. And I wanted to talk to you. Obviously, you focus on oil, but I'm sure you've thought quite a lot about the way this repuls around the economy.

Let's put C5 up on the screen. This was some reporting from the Wall Street Journal about the warnings that the Trump White House is fielding about the Iran war's economic hit. Some of these warnings coming from oil executives. And we could put C6 up on the screen as well. We had a relatively hot inflation report. Last Friday, U.S. inflation tripled last month based on record spike in gas prices. Obviously, you know, it's not just at the pump where we feel the increase of these prices. This flows throughout the entire economy.

So talk to us a little bit about what you expect there. Yeah. So consumers are going to feel this primarily through gasoline pump prices. But the kind of stealthier way that this is going to, you know, continue to juice inflation is through diesel. is through jet fuel, is through these fuels that kind of, you know, these middle distilates, diesel and gasoline in particular, are effectively the fuels that drive the industrial economy. These are the prices that unless you have like a diesel hemie truck, you might not be paying for diesel at the pump, but you're going to start paying, you know, surcharges on Amazon deliveries.

You started to see flights that started charging surcharges on, you know, long-haul flights. All of these things are going to begin to be incorporated because otherwise, you know, corporate margins are going to get obliterated. And I think the longer this goes on, the more this is going to go from special surcharges to just new high prices. And that's the thing we saw through 2022 is the longer this goes on, that's when those inflationary expectations begin to mount. And that's when you begin to see companies have more of this kind of space and kind of flexibility to raise prices, even if they would have hesitated historically. That also, I think, bears on central banks and the fact that many central banks would have been wanting to be cutting interest rates during this period. to kind of support the economy,

which looks like it could be flagging in a couple different areas, that I think is also now going to be unhold given the very recent experience in 2022 of runaway inflation and how unpopular that was for consumers. All of this, of course, is just deeply, deeply bizarre and ironic coming from an administration

that was brought into the White House to end, you know, forever wars in the Middle East and increase and kind of better the cost of living for American consumers. And so far we're going in the polar, opposite direction. Last question for you, Rory. Our next segment is going to be about Asia. There's been significant unrest in these Asian countries over their reliance here on Iranian oil. The Korean president is openly feuding with the nation of Israel. He's obviously very upset. 50,000 Japanese

people actually took to the streets a couple of days ago to protest the Iran war. This doesn't really happen all that often. So can you break down? We just talked here about U.S. economies. The situation seems way more dire for them or the vast majority of their oil comes through the straight, you know, what shortages and other prices can we see in the Asian economies in the coming months? So everything that I was talking about for North America or Europe about jet fuel is kind of doubled or tripled for Asia. Okay. The vast majority of oil from the Strait of Formoose goes to Asia, while not as much of, let's say, the direct diesel and jet fuel that goes to the European continent, the vast majority of the crude oil. So you've seen European or sorry Asian refineries pull,

back their operations considerably. And you saw Asian or Singaporean jet fuel jump above $200 a barrel equivalent in the first week of this war. And then it's continued to mount higher. You've seen the steepest service cuts to airlines. Everything it's going to be coming across

Asia. And you've also seen Asian economies coming out of the very recent experience of COVID, also being far heavier handed than Western counterparts on forcible reductions in kind of policies meant to reduce mobility. But you've seen governments talking from work from home. You've talked, you know, you've already heard people

talking about like, you know, the odd even license plate days of who can drive into cities. And I think for a lot of these economies, you also see heavy government subsidies or kind of support in these prices, which if this, if that level of support persists through a price shock, shifts this from a consumer shock to a fiscal shock, which kind of has all of these kind of government bankruptcy concerns that begin to amount. So at the same time, these consumers are used to very stable prices. And if this continues, you're going to need to see governments rapidly and kind of abruptly pullback support. So that that price shock is going to be doubly painful for those consumers that are used to prices that really don't move around nearly as much as we see them at the

pump. Very true. Thank you for, oh, sorry, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to say thank you. Thank you, very much. Always appreciate your analysis. It's always great to see you. Ready for a different take on Formula One? Look no further than no grip, a new podcast tackling the culture of motor racing's most coveted series. Join me, Lily Herman, as we dive into the under-explored pockets of F-1, including the story of the woman who last participated in a Formula One race weekend, the recent uptick in F-1 romance novels, and plenty of mishap scandals and sagas that have made Formula One a delightful, decadent dumpster fire for more than 75 years.

Listen to No Grip on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, host of the On Purpose podcast. My latest episode is with No. Con, the singer-songwriter behind the multi-platinum global hit Stick Season, and one of the biggest voices in music today. Talking about the mental illness stuff, it used to be this thing that I was ashamed of. Getting to talk about this is not common for me. Right now, I need it more than ever.

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Chetty on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast playing along is back with more of my favorite musicians. Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin. You related to The Phantom at that point. Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that. That's so funny. Share each day with me each night, each morning.

Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.