The US and Israel on Feb 28 launched what they described as a “pre-emptive” joint strike against Iranian targets, with Trump announcing start of “major combat operations”
A series of well-timed market bets on falling oil prices totalling as much as $7 billion during March and April spread across multiple exchanges and types of fuel and derivatives just before major Iranian policy announcements by US President Donald Trump, according to traders, market experts and Reuters’ analysis of exchange data.
The size exceeds previously reported bets amounting to $2.6bn, which have already prompted the US administration to warn staff against using nonpublic information for financial benefit.
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is investigating, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters in April, although the CFTC has yet to officially confirm a probe is underway.
Reuters cannot establish who placed the bets and whether they originated in the US or elsewhere. They included short positions, or bets that prices would fall, for derivatives including ICE, CME crude, diesel and gasoline futures.
US Senator Bernie Sanders has reiterated his call to stop American military aid to Israel.
“The Trump-Netanyahu war is not just about Iran. Israel’s defence minister says, “The fate of southern Lebanon will be the same as that of Gaza,” Sanders says in a social media post.
He notes that 2,702 people have been killed and 1.6 million displaced sicnce fighting between Israel and Hezbollah erupted on March 2.
“No more US military aid to [Israeli PM] Netanyahu,” he stresses.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has accused Iran of “pillaging resources that rightfully belong to the Iraqi people”, likening them to a “rogue gang”.
“[The] Treasury will not stand idly by as Iran’s military exploits Iraqi oil to fund terrorism against the United States and our partners,” he writes in a post on X.
In a letter to the United Nations, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has slammed a Security Council draft resolution which seeks to end tolls and laying sea mines in the Strait of Hormuz, calling it “unilateral and provocative”, according to state broadcaster Press TV.
“Abbas Araghchi emphasised that the responsibility of the international community is not to allow aggressors to misuse the Security Council as a tool to justify their own illegal actions,” Press TV adds.
With their location trackers shut off to avoid Iranian attacks, the United Arab Emirates and buyers have recently sailed several tankers loaded with crude through the Strait of Hormuz in a bid to move oil bottled up in the Gulf by the Middle East conflict, Reuters reports citing industry sources and shipping data.
The volumes are a fraction of the UAE’s typical exports before the US-Israeli war on Iran, but they demonstrate the risks the producer and buyers are willing to take to free up oil sales.
The other Gulf producers — Iraq, Kuwait, and Qatar — have either halted sales, deeply cut prices to entice uninterested buyers or are shipping only through the Red Sea, in the case of Saudi Arabia.
In April, the UAE’s Abu Dhabi National Oil Co managed to export at least 4 million barrels of its Upper Zakum crude and 2 million barrels of Das crude on four tankers from terminals inside the Gulf, according to three sources, shiptracking data from Kpler and an analysis of satellite data from SynMax.
Qatar’s Ambassador to the UN Alya Ahmed Saif al-Thani has spoken about the draft resolution on the Strait of Hormuz, saying it is of “great importance” both regionally and globally, Al Jazeera reports.
She says the current situation “not only jeopardises global economic stability and energy security but also worsens humanitarian crises and undermines regional stability”.
Ensuring the strait remains open is a “demand set forth” by UN conventions, as well as a “shared international responsibility,” the Qatari ambassador adds.
Qatar “looks forward to continuing our engagement intensively with member states to secure support for this timely security resolution”, she says.
Israel’s military has carried out a new series of air raids in southern Lebanon, including targeting the areas of Dibbin, Habboush, Souaneh and Zawtar al-Gharbiyah. The attack on Dibbin sparked a house fire, Al Jazeera reports, citing Lebanon’s National News Agency.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has claimed numerous artillery attacks on Israeli forces, including in the town of Deir Siryan. The group claims it attacked an Israeli military post near the border, destroying a defence platform.
The US envoy to the UN, Mike Waltz, says Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz violates the basic law of the sea and international law, Al Jazeera reports.
Waltz has condemned reports that Iran is launching a Persian Gulf Straits Authority, which would impose tolls on ships crossing the waterway, calling the dispersal of seamen in the Strait a “cynical bid for leverage”.
“Collective punishment of the entire world to try to resolve some type of dispute is unacceptable, it’s immoral, and it’s illegal in international law,” he says.
“This should be a simple demand. The removal of mines from an international waterway that you cannot exact illegal tolls. We have to address these violations, here in the council, and we have to ask ourselves if a country chooses to oppose such a simple proposition, do they really want peace?” Waltz asks.
The US is co-drafting a new UN Security Council resolution with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, to demand that Iran end its attacks on merchant vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and cease its attempts to impose tolls, Al Jazeera reports.
The latest resolution comes after last month’s efforts were dashed following the permanent members of the council, Russia and China, blocking a resolution that was aimed at protecting commercial shipping in the waterway.
But the US representative to the UN says that the new resolution will also call on Iran to stop laying sea mines and disclose their locations in the Strait.
He explains that the draft is a “narrower effort” than the previous failed resolution and is focused on tolls and mining.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says Israel’s expansionist policies pose the main security threat to the region, Anadolu reports.
“Israeli aggression has once again shown that the main security problem for our region is the expansionist, lawless and norm-defying policies of the current government,” Erdogan has said at a joint news conference with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in Ankara.
“Turkiye and Algeria share a common stance on ending the spiral of violence that seriously threatens the peace and security of our region,” he adds.
The United States has imposed sanctions on Iraq’s deputy oil minister over support for Iran, as Washington puts intense pressure on the incoming government to sever links, AFP reports.
The deputy minister, Ali Maarij al-Bahadli, “abused his government position to divert Iraqi oil in support of the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott alleges.
“As part of a scheme to evade sanctions, Iranian oil was fraudulently mixed with Iraqi oil and sold for Iran’s benefit,” he adds.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) carriers have transited the Strait of Hormuz five times over the past two weeks, AFP reports citing maritime tracking firm Kpler.
This is up from just one between March 1 and April 21, after the Middle East war largely halted traffic through the strategic waterway.
Normally in peacetime, 20 per cent of global seaborne LNG passes through the Strait of Hormuz.
“LNG operators have remained highly cautious about transiting the strait given the high value of the vessels and the relatively limited size of the global LNG fleet,” Laura Page, a Kpler analyst, tells AFP.
The five crossings recorded since April 22 have involved four LNG tankers linked to the United Arab Emirates.
All kept their transponders off as they navigated the strait.
Germany will generate less tax revenue in the coming years, in large part due to the “irresponsible” Middle East war launched by US President Donald Trump, AFP reports citing Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil.
Tax income for the federal government and local authorities is projected to be nearly €70 billion ($82 billion) lower between 2026 and 2030 than forecast in October, ministry figures show. For this year alone, revenues have been revised down by €17.8 billion.
This estimate “shows just how much the war in Iran is harming our economy”, says Klingbeil in a statement.
“The irresponsible war waged by Trump and the resulting global energy price shock are currently slowing positive economic momentum,” he adds.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei has said that the country is currently “reviewing messages mediated by Pakistan”, according to state broadcaster IRIB.
“Iran has not yet reached a conclusion, and no response has been given to the US side,” Baghaei is quoted as saying.
Around 1,500 ships and their crews are trapped in the Gulf due to the Iranian blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, the secretary general of the UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) has said in Panama, according to AFP.
“Right now, we have approximately 20,000 crewmen and around 1,500 ships trapped,” Arsenio Dominquez tells the Maritime Convention of the Americas.
Left-wing Democratic lawmakers have called on the United States to break its silence on Israel’s suspected nuclear weapons program, shattering a decades-long bipartisan reticence in Washington on the sensitive issue, AFP reports.
Israel is widely believed to have developed nuclear weapons in the 1960s but keeps a deliberately ambiguous policy by neither confirming nor denying its arsenal, which is not subject to any international monitoring.
Some 30 Democratic lawmakers, led by Representative Joaquin Castro, said that the United States needed clear answers after President Donald Trump joined Israel in a war against Iran, launched in part over charges that Tehran has been seeking to build a weapon through its nominally civilian nuclear program.
“We cannot develop [a] coherent nonproliferation policy for the Middle East, including with respect to Iran’s civil nuclear program and Saudi Arabia’s civil nuclear ambitions, while maintaining a policy of official silence about the nuclear weapons capabilities of one party central to the ongoing conflict in which the United States is a direct participant,” they have written in a letter, made public late on Wednesday.
“We ask that you hold Israel to the same standard of transparency that the United States expects from any other country that may be pursuing or retaining nuclear weapons capability.”
The lawmakers have asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to reply by May 18 to explain Israel’s nuclear capabilities as well as its nuclear doctrine, including whether Israel could use the ultra-destructive weapons in Iran.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright claims Iran appears to have cut back oil production by 400,000 barrels per day (bpd) and is likely to reduce it more as its storage units fill, Reuters reports.
“It looks like they’ve likely already cut back their production, maybe by 400,000 barrels a day. They’ll likely continue to ramp down their production as their storage fills and their inability to export oil,” Wright said in an interview with Fox News.
China has denounced further military escalation in the Middle East during the ongoing conflict between the US and Iran, Al Jazeera reports.
“The Chinese side firmly opposes any actions that escalate tensions in the region,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian tells reporters in Beijing.
“China consistently maintains that the sovereignty, security, and territorial integrity of Middle Eastern Gulf countries should be earnestly respected, and that civilians and nonmilitary targets should be protected,” says Lin.
He adds that the “immediate priority is to achieve an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire, prevent further escalation of the conflict, and halt the spread of hostilities”.
Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar received a call from his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araghchi, during which the pair discussed the latest regional situation and “ongoing diplomatic efforts aimed at promoting peace and stability”, according to the Foreign Office (FO).
“FM Araghchi briefed the DPM/FM on his recent visit to China and the consultations held on regional and international issues of mutual interest,” the FO has said in a post on X.
It adds that Araghchi thanked Dar for Pakistan’s facilitating the repatriation of Iranian sailors from vessels seized by US forces.
