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Bureau: Moscow
Stocks fell again Friday, bond yields climbed, and oil surged as traders moved from geopolitical nerves to something more concrete: a war that looks inflationary, rate-sensitive, and increasingly expensive to dismiss as temporary.
The administration has ruled out oil and gas export restrictions even as prices rise. That matters because it shows one of the most dramatic emergency levers is politically or strategically unavailable just as the energy shock broadens.
CNBC reports that only a small fraction of normal tanker traffic is moving through Hormuz, with hundreds of ships waiting nearby, selective safe passage, and widespread rerouting. The strait is not a binary open-or-shut story anymore. It is a rationed, negotiated bottleneck.
The Trump administration's $20 billion maritime reinsurance program shows how far the government is willing to go to restart traffic. But as CNBC's own reporting notes, insurance is not the main problem if shipowners still fear the ships themselves are exposed.
CNBC reports that Iraq declared force majeure on foreign-operated oilfields after Hormuz disruption made crude shipment impossible. That pushed oil higher and gave the market a fresh reason to treat the war as a real supply event, not just a nerves event.