WSJ What’s News - U.S. and Iran Both Claim Victory in New Ceasefire

Episode Date: April 8, 2026

A.M. Edition for April 8. The U.S. and Iran have reached a 14-day ceasefire agreement aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz and pausing weeks of escalating military strikes. With Tehran touting the deal as a strategic win, WSJ Middle East correspondent Jared Malsin details what we know about the truce and whether the Strait is in fact reopening. Plus, how markets – and central banks – are responding to the U.S. and Iran walking back from the brink. And Republicans beat back a Democratic push to win Marjorie Taylor Green’s House seat. Luke Vargas hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The U.S. pauses attacks on Iran after an 11th hour truce. We'll get the latest on the ceasefire and check in on how markets are reacting. Plus, TikTok says hey to Finland as it tries to hold off European regulatory pressure and Republicans beat back a Democratic push to win Marjorie Taylor Green's House seat. But they can't beat Donald Trump and they never will. And I will be on Capitol Hill as a warrior to have his back each and every day. It's Wednesday, April 8th. I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal, and here is the AM edition of What's News,

the top headlines and business stories moving your world today. President Trump says he's agreed to suspend attacks on Iran for two weeks, so long as the country immediately reopens the Strait of Hormuz. Trump defended the ceasefire announcement, saying that the U.S. had already met its military objectives and citing progress in negotiating a long-term peace with Iran. But having threatened to wipe out Iran's civilization just hours earlier and promising attacks on a range of new targets in recent days, is the U.S. ready to lay down arms? Is Iran, and crucially, is the Strait of Hormuz back open?

Here to help us sort out where things stand. I'm joined by Wall Street Journal, Middle East correspondent Jared Malson. Jared, what exactly was agreed to overnight? So last night, President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with, with Iran. He also acknowledged Iran's own terms for the ceasefire. So you have two different parameters and a lot of ambiguity around how this ceasefire is going to unfold. So it's sort of classic Trump where there's an announcement of a deal and they're going to work out the details later where there's supposed to be negotiations between U.S. officials and the Iranian side

brokered by Pakistan starting later this week. But for now, there is a ceasefire in place. the U.S. military says that it has stopped offensive operations, and the Iranians have declared their own victory in the war. You said President Trump acknowledged Iran's own terms. We had read out parts of one of their counteroffers earlier in the week on yesterday's podcast, including reparations for the war, a lasting end to fighting, and some other things, a new regime to govern the Strait of Hormuz. Are those the terms you're mentioning there? Yes. So Trump, in his social media statement, announcing the ceasefire last night, said that they received the 10-point proposal from Iran, and he said that he believes it's a workable basis on which to negotiate. So there's at least some implicit acknowledgement of Iran's position on this, which, as you said, include a number of important concessions.

Possibly the biggest one is that Iran wants to continue its influence over the Strait of Hormin. where they say that movement of ships through the strait will take place in coordination with its armed forces. I would imagine if Iran even gets some of those demands addressed by the U.S., that would be seen as quite a positive development in Tehran, would it not? Yes, that's exactly how it's being seen. Obviously, this is a situation in which both sides are really declaring victory. There's going to be a lot of spin and a lot of trying to shape public perceptions of what this all means. But it is significant that six weeks ago you had ships moving freely through the Strait of Hormuz, and now you have at least some official acknowledgement of Iran's influence and ability to have some degree of

control over what passes through the strait. The shipping industry and the oil industry are reacting to this with some skepticism. Right now, I can tell you there are not any ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz. And I think there's going to be a lot of caution from industry because they can't send giant oil tankers through the strait until they have explicit assurances that those ships are going to be safe. The Iranians have been trying to charge transit fees for ships as they cross. We don't know whether that's going to become a permanent thing. We know the Iranians have said that they wanted to be permanent. But all of those very important details are still to be hammered out.

All right. So big question marks around kind of the future arrangements for this straight and whether indeed it's going to be opening in the wake of this. What about the ceasefire itself? Is it holding? The ceasefire, I would say, is fragile and incomplete. There are several important questions around this. Number one is that the Iranians continued to fire missiles last night after the announcement

at Israel and at Gulf countries. Another important question is whether the ceasefire is going to include Lebanon, Obviously, there's been an entire offensive by the Israeli military against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Israeli government did not want Lebanon to be included in the ceasefire. Pakistan, which is the key mediating country, says that it is going to be included. So there's a lot of uncertainty around that. And I think just a lot of built-in fragility to this deal with so many different aspects of it still up in the air and still to be decided in the formal negotiations that are coming later this week. And yet today, maybe it all worked out in the end. I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal, Middle East correspondent Jared Malson.

Jared, appreciate you. Thanks so much for the update. Thank you. U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hexeth and General Dan Cain are set to brief the press at 8 a.m. Eastern this morning, but investors aren't waiting to see the ceasefires fine print before kicking off a global market rally. Asian stocks posted gains across the board today, led by a more than 5% jump in Japan's Niki. European markets are up, and U.S. futures are pointing to a big open led by the NASDAQ. Investors also snapped up U.S. treasuries. The dollar fell to a one-month low, and oil futures posted double-digit drops into the $90 a barrel range.

Less enthused, though, about the unwinding of the war premium were energy stocks, with ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell all down more than 5%. Shell this morning said that while it's expecting a first quarter boost from oil trading, its natural gas out. look would take a hit after one of its crown jewel assets, the pearl gas to liquids facility and Qatar was targeted in the war. Meanwhile, the central banks of New Zealand and India today have decided to leave interest rates unchanged, while officials in both countries say they remain on alert for longer lasting consequences stemming from the Iran war. Our Fabiana Negreen Ochoa is in Singapore. For Asia, the war has definitely an outsized impact in terms of inflationary risk because it's a region that relies so heavily on energy imports, many from the Middle East,

of course, even though that's driven up a lot of expectations that central banks will start tightening policy and there'll be like a hawkish shift, it's not that clear cut because the fact that the inflationary shock is supply driven means that central banks don't really have the right toolkit with which to address those problems. Central bankers in the region are also cognizant that they don't want to raise rates too quickly and then stifle the fledgling economic recoveries that we've seen through the last year, even though there was all this tariff turmoil. All of that, Fabiana, I guess, explains why both New Zealand Central Bank and the Royal Bank of India

are reserving the right to move in the future if they have to, which I guess is what we could also expect to hear from the Bank of Korea later in the week. But definitely, I mean, it's really important for the central banks to send that signaling that they are ready to act if certain indicators show that things have gone out of control. If core inflation, the measure that strips out all these volatile items, if that hits certain pain thresholds, then central banks will come in, even though it's a supply-driven shock because their job is also to anchor people's expectations of inflation. So that's where you're seeing a lot of this sort of preemptive messaging. Now, the RBI went to great lengths to point out that they're actually in a really good position relative to past crises, but they still listed very clearly all the channels through which the war will impact them, even if a truce is reached and there is a lasting resolution.

So in his speech, the RBI governor specifically mentioned that the supply shock can turn into, a demand shock very quickly. If the supply chains aren't smoothed out and the flows of commodities don't resume as normal because then you're going to have really high input costs for companies and that affects every single industry pretty much. That was Fabiana Negri Nochoa in Singapore. Later today, the Federal Reserve will release its latest minutes, which could offer clues as to whether it's likely to raise interest rates to tackle rising inflation. And this morning, Delta Airlines will report earnings. A closely watched report as it battles higher fuel expenses. Coming up, we've got the rest of the day's news, including a key Republican victory for a

House seat and TikTok's somewhat frosty bet on Europe. Those stories and more after the break. Republicans have prevented Marjorie Taylor Green's Georgia House seat from falling into Democratic hands. Yesterday's special election in Georgia's 14th Congressional District have been seen as a referendum on President Trump. And while Democrat Sean Harris did manage to draw more support than Democrats in past races, he was ultimately no match for Republican Clayton Fuller, a former prosecutor and Air Force veteran. President Trump is the most critical factor in our election.

And he has made sure that we are going to win. He made sure that he was the ultimate Trump card. We are exclusively reporting that the U.S. is negotiating with countries in Africa and Asia to taken more than 1,100 Afghans stranded at a former American military base in Qatar. The Afghans, many of whom say they risked their lives to help the U.S. war effort, were evacuated by the former Biden administration, but have been prevented from entering the U.S. after President Trump restricted travel from the country and have now been stuck at the base for more than a year. Qatar has previously lobbied the U.S. to close the camp as quickly as possible, as it was never meant to be permanent.

Hong Kong-based port operator C.K. Hutchison is escalating its legal action over the company's voided Panama Canal contracts, and it's now accusing Danish shipping giant Mersk of working with the Panamanian government to replace it. Back in January, a court in Panama canceled Hutchison's contracts to run two terminals at either end of the canal that it had held for over 30 years while seizing its assets in the country. The ruling was seen as a win for the Trump administration in trying to curb China's influence around the vital waterway. Hutchison has now filed arbitration against Merck, separate from action against Panama's government. Mersk didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hutchison had planned to sell the two contested ports as part of a $23 billion deal to a group that includes BlackRock, but in a recent earnings report said the issue had complicated talks to sell some of its port assets. And TikTok has announced plans to invest more than a billion dollars to build a second data center in Finland, in part because of its cool climate. In Finland, when it's terribly cold, we say, it's a rapsack, kelly. That's the sound that the snow makes when it's really, really cold. Finland has become a popular hub for data centers in Europe, with Google and Microsoft among the companies investing there, also taking a. advantage of the country's affordable, renewable energy and robust digital infrastructure. TikTok's investment is also a response to pressure from European regulators over how the platform handles user data for more than 200 million European users and potential access by its

Chinese parent bite dance. And that's it for what's news for this Wednesday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff, and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a show. And until then, thanks for listening.