THE NEW YORK TIMES: Countries already walloped by a breakdown of the international trading order, war in Ukraine and chaotic U.S. policymaking are facing potentially lasting economic damage.
Bombs are exploding in Iran and the Middle East, but the fallout is rattling households and businesses in neighborhoods all over the globe.
In Kansas, home buyers saw 30-year mortgage rates edge above 6 percent this week. In Western India, families mourning the death of a loved one discovered that gas-fired crematories had been temporarily closed.
In Hanoi, Vietnam, gas station owners posted “sold out” signs. In Kenya, tea growers and traders worried their exports to Iran would rot on the dock. And across the United States, Canada, Europe, Britain and Mexico, farmers blanched at the surge in fertilizer costs.
The widening war in Iran has delivered a stunning punch to a worldwide economy that has already been walloped by a breakdown of the international trading order, war in Ukraine and President Trump’s chaotic policymaking.
“This really is the big one,” David Goldwyn, a former U.S. diplomat and U.S. Energy Department official, said of the shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important choke point for oil. It is the emergency scenario everyone feared, he said.
Cargo deliveries have been stranded, shipping charges have increased and insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Yes, the price of gas at the pump is affected. But so is the price of food, medicine, airplane tickets, electricity, cooking oil, semiconductors and more.
A drawn-out war between the United States and Iran could have “catastrophic consequences” for the world’s oil market and the global economy, Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil and gas company, warned this week.
Yet even if the war, which began on Feb. 28 when the United States and Israel struck Iran, wraps up relatively quickly, this latest upheaval is sending consumers, workers and employers on another unnerving and unpredictable ride. » | Patricia Cohen | Patricia Cohen is the global economics correspondent in London.| Thursday, March 12, 2026
One can but wonder what all the members of Trump’s fan club have to say for themselves now! The king of dealmaking is not looking so clever now, is he? His magic touch looks pretty elusive to me. — © Mark Alexander