BRAVE WORLD TRUMP NEWSLETTER • DAILY EDITION WITH UPDATES ON THE US AND ISRAEL ATTACK ON IRAN
Precisely a week ago, around 48 hours after the US and Israeli attack on Iran, we outlined the worst-case scenario for Portugal and, above all, for the pockets of national consumers: . Fuel prices have soared in just one week to their highest values since Vladimir Putin gave the go-ahead for the “military special operation” in Ukraine – diesel rose by more than 20 cents at once. And brokers are already beginning to anticipate the inevitable interest rate increases from the European Central Bank (read). Until we see, this worst-case scenario will hit us sooner or later and it seems that, at this moment, the only question is how big the economic tsunami will be.
Still, in a stroke of magic, Trump seems to have transformed himself into a kind of market charmer: he played the flute and, after a week of successive increases, the price of a barrel of Brent fell (you can read it). In an act that can hardly be understood as innocent or devoid of prior thought, the US president told CBS News that he “thinks the war is practically over.” In the moments before the statements there were no major changes on the ground – at least that were made public -, but Trump guarantees that the conflict is about to end, justifying that Iran “has no Navy, no communications, no air force; missiles are dispersed; drones are being destroyed everywhere”: “If you notice, they have nothing left”, commented the US president (see ).
“There’s nothing left,” Trump repeated and, after another late night, the markets opened with the price of a barrel of Brent falling. An unexpected surprise because, on Monday, oil surpassed 100 dollars per barrel, the highest value since 2022, but, this Tuesday, at 7:15, the barrel of Brent fell 6.3%, to 92.68 dollars, despite maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz remaining restricted, Iran not having raised the white flag and the USA and Israel maintaining daily attacks. Trump, who assured that he had “no message” for Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, appears to have conveyed a very clear message to the markets in the only language they know how to hear: risk and uncertainty. This is because, in the same way that the price of crude rose fearlessly after the first attack on Iran, as soon as the Strait of Hormuz reopens to 100% the trend should be the same but in the opposite direction – and whoever bought oil in those last moments before the turnaround will lose money.
This Tuesday, the Pentagon updated the number of US casualties in Iran. Since the attacks began, more than a week ago, US forces have seen seven of their soldiers die in combat. There are also records of 140 injured people of North American nationality, eight of them in a condition considered serious (you can read ). The Pentagon takes the opportunity to clarify that “the vast majority have suffered minor injuries” and that, of these 140 soldiers, 108 have already returned to the field.
As an external observer of all this, António Costa warned of a new fact that seems difficult to contradict: “There is only one winner in this war in Iran, Russia” (see the video). The president of the European Council now says that, while Iran is being bombed and Israel is considering an invasion with boots on the ground and the US maintains pressure on Iranian skies, the price of energy is increasing and the attention given to the war in Ukraine is fading.
It can be argued that Beijing is also among the winners of the new normal in Iran, but Costa has one factor that gives him special reason: since January, Russia had started producing 600,000 fewer barrels of oil per day because it was running out of storage space and had 150 million barrels stranded on the high seas after the cut in Indian imports (you can read it). Last week, given the rise in oil prices, Washington gave India authorization to buy this same oil that was adrift. And on Monday night, after a phone conversation with Putin, Trump announced that he will “lift some oil-related sanctions to lower prices” and will do so “until the situation improves.” “After that, who knows? Maybe we won’t need to reinstate the sanctions. There will be a lot of peace,” said Trump, giving clear support to António Costa’s theory.
In the midst of all these political-economic events, this Tuesday there was a military movement that may have gone unnoticed for those who don’t follow CNN Portugal full time because they have to work, eat, sleep or something like that: after NATO intercepted missiles fired by Iran, Turkey installed Patriots (anti-aircraft defense) systems in the center of the country. The State with the largest army, in terms of number of men, in Europe took advantage of this maneuver (read ) to warn about what seems to be a more universal truth every day: “Diplomacy” is “no longer enough”.
Before saying goodbye, remember that we launched a podcast about the attack on Iran, it is daily, short, practical, explains and contextualizes, anticipates and analyzes – search for Epic Fury on your favorite podcast platform (on Spotify, for example, and on the CNN website – but it is available at and etc.). Good morning and good luck.
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