Charting the global economy: Oil prices top $90 on Iran war
World
US President Donald Trump demanded Iran surrender as the war on the Islamic Republic raged for a seventh day, with the impact reverberating across global supply chains and energy markets. US crude futures hit $90 a barrel and Brent crude neared $95 a barrel for the first time in almost two years during the session, with traders warning $100 could be on the horizon sooner rather than later.
US
An unexpected hiring slump threatens to upend the prevailing view among Federal Reserve policymakers that a stabilizing labor market will allow them to keep interest rates steady as they fight persistent inflation. A decline of 92,000 February payrolls, along with an increase in the unemployment rate to 4.4%, has stoked warnings by economists of a stagflationary cycle as a widening war in the Middle East causes oil prices surge.
Manufacturing expanded in February but input prices soared at the fastest pace since 2022, stoking fears of an inflation resurgence even before this weekend’s attacks on Iran. The assortment of recent price data along with geopolitics point to a steady undercurrent of inflation for US producers, which is being partially fed by higher import duties from the Trump administration.
Europe
The next four weeks will determine whether Europe’s economy is facing a fresh crisis or simply a speed bump in its recovery. A longer Iran war risks sabotaging the euro zone’s fledgling revival while reawakening inflationary forces that the European Central Bank has fought hard to contain.
Euro-area inflation unexpectedly quickened, backing the ECB’s caution on interest rates, particularly as the war in Iran sends energy prices surging. Core inflation, excluding volatile food and energy costs, also surprised economists by accelerating to 2.4%.
Asia
A sense of panic is spreading among Asian oil and fuel buyers as the war in the Middle East chokes access to everything from crude to refined fuels and feedstock used to produce petrochemicals. The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz is already prompting some Asian countries to prioritize domestic needs, cutting exports and tightening regional supplies.
Panic swept through South Korea’s trading floors as concerns over the Middle East conflict sent the world’s hottest stock market to its biggest-ever selloff. The Kospi Index plunged 12% — following a 7.2% drop on Tuesday — as heavyweights Samsung Electronics Co., SK Hynix Inc. and Hyundai Motor Co. tumbled. Of more than 800 stocks on the benchmark, only 10 finished in the green. The Kospi recovered slightly late in the week.
China set its most modest growth target since 1991, a tacit acknowledgment that the model powering the country’s economic rise is showing strains.
Emerging Markets
Venezuelan crude exports from its main export hub are surging toward multi-year highs in March, three months into the Trump administration’s control of oil sales. The modest new supply is reaching the market as war in the Middle East rages on, triggering production cuts in some of OPEC’s largest oil producers, creating a potential opening for Venezuelan oil.
Already burdened by Washington’s efforts to blunt Chinese influence and reassert dominion over the Americas, energy importing nations like Chile and smaller countries like the Dominican Republic are now vulnerable to sudden oil price spikes thanks to the war in Iran.
—With assistance from Sangmi Cha, Serene Cheong, Enda Curran, Patricia Garip, Tsuyoshi Inajima, Lucia Kassai, Lucille Liu, Yujing Liu, Nicholas Lua, Matthew Malinowski, James Mayger, Colum Murphy, Jana Randow, Zoe Schneeweiss, Mark Schroers, Grant Smith, Qizi Sun, Patrick Sykes and Jing Zhao.