What the Markets Tell Trump
Our take
In the latest edition of The Atlantic Daily, the interplay between President Donald Trump's foreign policy decisions and market reactions takes center stage. After nearly a month of military action in Iran, Trump hinted at winding down operations, only to deliver an ultimatum regarding the Strait of Hormuz shortly thereafter. This back-and-forth reflects not just a chaotic approach to international relations but also a concerning reliance on market dynamics to guide significant policy decisions. For those following global politics, understanding this relationship is crucial, especially in light of recent analyses like Is Trump Actually Having ‘Very Good’ Talks With Tehran? and What Trump Wants From Cuba.
Trump's decision-making appears increasingly tethered to market reactions, a notion underscored by his administration's historical sensitivity to U.S. Treasury yields and oil prices. The recent postponement of his ultimatum to Iran aligns with shifts in oil futures and stock market movements, indicating that the president is acutely aware of how global events impact domestic economic sentiment. This dynamic raises significant questions about the integrity of U.S. foreign policy. When military action and diplomatic negotiations are seemingly orchestrated around market timings, it blurs the line between national interests and economic speculation. As the article mentions, Trump's prior decisions, such as the timing of tariffs, reflect a pattern of aligning critical announcements with trading hours to mitigate market backlash.
This reliance on market signals to dictate foreign policy is particularly concerning when considering the implications for U.S. credibility on the world stage. Iran, aware of Trump's sensitivity to rising oil prices and the economic fallout that ensues, could leverage this knowledge to manipulate negotiations. The prospect of escalating tensions with Iran while simultaneously attempting to maintain favorable market conditions complicates the narrative. The more Trump reacts to market pressures, the greater the risk of appearing weak or indecisive, potentially emboldening adversaries who may exploit his vulnerabilities.
As we move forward, it will be essential to monitor how these dynamics evolve. The upcoming weeks could yield critical insights into whether Trump will recalibrate his approach to international relations, particularly as domestic pressures mount from rising gasoline and food prices linked to energy market fluctuations. Are we witnessing a transformative moment in U.S. foreign policy, or will it revert to a more traditional model as pressures intensify? The relationship between market responses and foreign policy decisions will undoubtedly shape both the geopolitical landscape and domestic economic realities as we advance into what promises to be a consequential season of policymaking.
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On Friday, after almost a full month of bombing Iran, Donald Trump offered a glimpse of the end. American military operations in the country, he said, could soon be “winding down.” A day later, he swerved, giving Iran an ultimatum: Should its leaders refuse to lift their effective blockade on the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, unfreezing much of the world’s oil, he would “obliterate” the nation’s energy infrastructure. Then, yesterday morning, another swerve: Following “productive” diplomatic talks, Trump would postpone the deadline until Friday. Never mind the fact that Iran has denied that any such talks took place.
The president hasn’t always been clear about what he wants from this war—or how he plans to mitigate the energy crisis it has created. At one point, he suggested that the spike in oil prices might actually be a good thing, because “we” could stand to “make a lot of money.” That’s true for oil producers, although not exactly a counter to all of the negative effects of a global energy shock. But the timing of this ultimatum and the timing of its subsequent deferral are revealing in their own way. Oil-futures markets don’t trade from Friday to Sunday evening. Because Trump’s threat to Iran arrived on a Saturday night, speculators had a short buffer—a little less than a day—to assess the potential price impact before trading resumed. And the reprieve, which lasts exactly five days, will conclude as markets head into the weekend pause.
The persistent rise of U.S. Treasury yields, coupled with the news yesterday morning that Asia’s markets (which start trading before Western markets) had plummeted after the ultimatum, probably also contributed to the postponement. John Bolton, who served as Trump’s national security adviser from 2018 to 2019, told The Atlantic that during Trump’s first term, foreign-policy announcements were sometimes timed with trading hours in mind. Those calls were made both by the president himself and by Treasury officials who advised him to do so. Trump’s second term has only clarified how much power the markets seem to have over his decision making—and other countries are likely paying attention.
Intentionally or not, certain military actions in Iran have aligned with weekend market pauses. And Trump has made at least one big decision that explicitly hinged on the market’s reaction: The initial announcement of last year’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, which resulted in the most significant equities-market shake-up of Trump’s second term, was deliberately delayed until the end of the trading day, Atlantic reporting has confirmed. The president has also enjoyed his power over the markets more broadly. My colleague Jonathan Lemire told me that, according to his reporting, Trump has in the past alerted aides when he thought an upcoming social-media post would get a reaction from Wall Street—and then watched the ticker move in real time. (“The Administration is naturally attuned to how major policy decisions affect financial markets and the economy, but any implication that the President’s decision-making—and timing—is influenced by anything other than the best interest of the American people is baseless and false,” a White House spokesperson wrote in a statement to The Atlantic.)
It’s easy to get conspiratorial about how, exactly, Trump times these moves. After all, not every foreign-policy decision can be chalked up to markets alone. The United States’ and Israel’s initial strikes on Iran were planned to coincide with a meeting of top Iranian leaders. That meeting happened to be on a Saturday. The timing of the raid on Nicolás Maduro’s compound reportedly had to do with the weather in Caracas in January; unfavorable cloud conditions delayed the capture of the Venezuelan president for days. Lucky, then, that the clouds cleared up on a Saturday—energy markets had a chance to figure out what the effects of the intervention might be before they reacted.
Thomas Wright, an Atlantic contributing writer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told me that although Trump has long cared about shifts in U.S. Treasury yields (Barron’s went so far as to call them his “kryptonite”), his recent actions have underscored the importance of energy markets in his decision making. “We’ve discovered in the Iran war that he’s also very sensitive to the price of oil—which we could have gathered from what he said over many years—but I think we have some evidence to it,” he said. Yesterday, Trump appeared to acknowledge the link between oil prices and the timing of his policies; after he announced the delay of his ultimatum on Iran, the price of oil slid and the stock market bounced back. “The price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as a deal is done,” Trump told reporters. “I guess it already is today.”
Iran is likely keeping tabs on Trump’s sensitivity to the markets too. When the price of oil shot up after the start of the war, the consequences set in for Americans pretty quickly: Gasoline is up; jet-fuel prices are up, compounding the ongoing chaos at American airports; and groceries and other everyday items are poised to get more expensive as well. Iran knows it has at least some leverage here. Trump’s apparent willingness to make decisions based on the markets is a liability—the more he reacts, the more easily he can be exploited.
Jonathan Lemire and Vivian Salama contributed reporting.
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Today’s News
- The Pentagon is preparing to deploy an elite combat brigade from the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East, adding to recent U.S. military buildups in the region. Officials say no decision has been made about whether they will send troops into Iran.
- Senators said that they are nearing a deal to fund most of the Department of Homeland Security, including TSA, while excluding the agency responsible for immigrant arrests and deportations. Political pressure to end the partial shutdown has mounted due to massive airport disruptions across the country.
- Minnesota sued the Trump administration, seeking access to evidence in the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good, who were shot by federal immigration agents. The state alleged that federal officials have blocked state investigators.
Evening Read
The Most Urgent Issue for the U.S. Catholic Church Isn’t Abortion Anymore
By Francis X. Rocca
Not so long ago, when U.S. Catholic leaders said something political, they tended to sound like conservatives. American bishops’ most prominent policy statements focused on three issues: same-sex marriage, contraception, and—above all—abortion. Their frequently stated opposition to all three put them at odds with not just the left but also many Catholics. It even created tension with Rome.
Since Donald Trump’s reelection, however, the Church in the United States has been sounding more liberal. Its teaching hasn’t changed, but the president’s second term has shifted the bishops’ attention. The most urgent political concern for America’s Catholic leaders is no longer abortion; it’s immigration.
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Culture Break
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Watch (or skip). Project Hail Mary (in theaters now) should be easier to root for, David Sims argues.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this newsletter.
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- Critics Have a New Way to Describe the Trump AdministrationThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Critics have used many phrases to describe Donald Trump’s presidency, some of them unprintable. Scholars and journalists have debated whether Trump’s approach is “authoritarian,” “white supremacist,” or “fascist.” More recently, however, a growing number of people have begun referring to the “Trump regime.” “The Trump regime has proven over and over,” The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky wrote, that its morality is “the advantage of the stronger.” A fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute complained that oversight tools “were effectively destroyed by the Trump regime last year.” And a writer for The Nation called for Democrats to “launch a ‘Nuremberg Caucus’ to investigate the crimes of the Trump regime.” Google Trends shows that although the phrase was occasionally deployed during Trump’s first term, it has become far more common over the past year. These usages are meant to tell us something about the state of contemporary politics in the United States—although exactly what is not always clear. Ambrose Bierce, the sardonic author of The Devil’s Dictionary, might have observed that a “regime” is any government that one doesn’t like. Those referring to the “Trump regime” this way seem to be implying that the administration is rapacious and authoritarian. But few of them are explicit about that, and their counterparts in the academy indulge in the same vagueness. “Very rarely do regime analysts stop to define what they mean by political regime,” the political scientist Gerardo L. Munck complained in 1996. The word was popularized in American politics as a sort of euphemism: During the George W. Bush presidency, regime change was a bloodless, technocratic term for the bloody, chaotic effort to topple Saddam Hussein and install a democratic system of government in Iraq. A good working definition, Munck told me in an email, is “the set of rules that regulate how people come to occupy government offices and how government decisions are made.” But even scholars often employ the term as a pejorative, used to describe authoritarian government. These “regimes” tend to have two main characteristics, sometimes overlapping though also in tension: first, the personalization of government around a single individual, and second, a set of informal power structures, such as business oligarchs or a “deep state,” that operate outside of the formal system of government. One could argue that the U.S. has had the same “regime” since 1789, when the Constitution entered into force and George Washington became president. Alternatively, one could look to moments such as the post–Civil War amendments or the New Deal as shifts in the regime. Either way, to state that Trump oversees a regime is to suggest an epochal change. That’s how Robert Reich sees it. Reich, a commentator and professor who served as secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, has been one of the most consistent and prominent users of the phrase. “I began referring to the Trump ‘regime’ rather than ‘administration’ because, especially in his second term, Trump has acted more like an authoritarian ruler than a president in a constitutional system of governance,” he wrote to me in an email. “This is no ‘administration’ that manages the executive branch by implementing the will of Congress, as expressed by the citizens of the United States.” I thought that perhaps scholars of regime systems would push back on using the label for Trump’s government, but the ones I spoke with cautiously endorsed it. “In the past, it was common to refer to the Pinochet regime in Chile or the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq,” Munck said. He told me that the use of Trump regime “is a correct appreciation, that highlights a key weakness in the current state of democracy in the U.S.” And Licia Cianetti, a political scientist who recently co-authored a paper on defining the word, wrote to me that “the personalisation of Trump’s style of rule, and some features like its oligarchization, make the use of ‘regime’ in this pejorative sense expedient to express what seems to be happening to American democracy.” Without downplaying the dangers that Trump poses to the American way of government (perils that The Atlantic has been aggressive in describing), I am not ready to join the “Trump regime” crew yet. One reason is that regimes can be resilient—a point that, ironically, Trump’s actions have demonstrated. “We have, really, regime change,” Trump said about Iran this week. “This is a change in the regime because the leaders are all very different.” That’s nonsense. Although American forces have arrested Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and killed several Iranian leaders, removing the dictators has not dislodged the dictatorships in either Caracas or Tehran. The 250-year-old democracy in Washington might also be stronger than those who wish to undermine it believe. Trump may hope to topple the laws and checks that constrain him, but he has not yet fully succeeded. Polls show widespread voter disapproval of Trump’s presidency and suggest trouble for the president’s allies in the midterm elections. Fair elections in 2026 and 2028 would not undo all of the damage Trump has done, but they would show that some observers have overstated his ability to demolish the constitutional system. Long live the regime! Related: Jonathan Rauch: Yes, it’s fascism John R. Bolton: A foreign policy worse than regime change Here are four new stories from The Atlantic: A turning point in the Iran war Is the end of NATO near? 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Dispatches Time-Travel Thursdays: Rafaela Jinich explores work in The Atlantic by Tracy Kidder, the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who died this week at 80. Explore all of our newsletters here. Evening Read Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: clavicular0 / Instagram What Was Clavicular? By Will Gottsegen Clav, as he’s known, has had a moment this year. Seemingly overnight, he became wildly popular among the lost boys of the internet—the kinds of people who spend their time watching Nick Fuentes, the white-supremacist influencer, and Andrew Tate, the proudly misogynistic elder statesman of the manosphere, who is currently awaiting trial on charges of rape and human trafficking (he has denied the allegations). In January, Clavicular joined Tate, Fuentes, and the extremist podcaster Myron Gaines at a nightclub in Miami. Videos of the group listening to the Kanye West song “Heil Hitler” went viral; Clavicular was singing along. Read the full article. 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- Is Trump Actually Having ‘Very Good’ Talks With Tehran?Sign up for our newsletter about national security here. Early this morning, with Asian markets sharply down and oil tankers idling in the Strait of Hormuz, President Trump offered Iranian leaders a familiar mix of threats but also a reprieve. What had been, only days earlier, a 48-hour ultimatum—reopen the strait or face the destruction of energy infrastructure —softened into something more elastic: a five-day extension for what he described as “very good and productive” talks with Tehran. The contours of the talks were not immediately clear, though Trump suggested while leaving Palm Beach this morning that both he and “the ayatollah, whoever the ayatollah is” should control the Strait of Hormuz, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes. He boasted of “major points of agreement” and assured reporters that Iran, like the United States, wants “very much to make a deal.” Otherwise, he added, “we’ll just keep bombing our little hearts out.” It was, by his telling, progress. By Tehran’s account, it was fiction. The gap between Trump’s claims and Iran’s categorical denials underscores how little control either side has over the conflict—or its narrative. The White House is attempting to manage a large-scale military confrontation with an undefined exit strategy—a confrontation that is unnerving markets. As military strikes fail to reopen the waterway and allies worry about the expanding conflict, the administration is facing the limits of unilateral action. Three foreign officials with knowledge of the U.S. efforts told us that Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, has communicated with the Iranian government through Pakistan and other regional intermediaries in an effort to get the embattled regime to agree to demands regarding its nuclear program and uranium-enrichment efforts. They said that the U.S. presented a 15-point plan—based on the 15-point proposal presented to the Iranian government last year—to give the weakened regime a chance to concede and spare itself further bombardment. These officials, like others we spoke with, did so on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations. Vice President Vance spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today about efforts to restart talks with Iran, a person with knowledge of the discussions told us. Vance, whose long-held isolationist views have put him at odds with some in the administration—including the president—may also take part in talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, in the coming days, this person said. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told us in a statement that the situation is fluid and that any “speculation about meetings should not be deemed as final until they are formally announced by the White House.” She added that the administration would not negotiate the conflict “through the press.” Iranian officials insist that there are no negotiations. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the Parliament speaker, dismissed Trump’s claims as market manipulation—they are an attempt, he said, to “escape the quagmire” and to reassure oil traders rattled by the strait’s closure. The result is a war suspended between escalation and exit, its terms of victory as undefined now as they were at its outset. Trump’s aides had previously urged him, advisers have told us, not to issue any ultimatums or deadlines that the U.S. would have difficulty enforcing—guidance that he followed for a time, even as his threats toward Tehran grew more belligerent. But the president grew frustrated late last week when Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz and refused to reopen it, even under heavy American and Israeli bombardment. The strait’s closure sent oil prices soaring and stock markets tumbling, and it unnerved Republicans facing close elections this fall. (Trump has often taken the stock-market indexes to be the most important metric of presidential success.) By Saturday, Trump was seething that NATO allies had refused to help secure the strait—and that he had received criticism and negative news coverage for announcing that he was glad that Robert Mueller had died, two advisers who were aware of the president’s mindset over the weekend told us. That night, Trump issued his 48-hour ultimatum to Iran. [Read: How much pain is Trump really willing to endure?] But Iran showed no signs of budging, and some of Trump’s advisers and U.S. allies in the region warned that destroying Iran’s power infrastructure would be a mistake, one of those advisers and two other people familiar with the conversations told us. U.S. allies and experts warned that a strike of that nature might prompt Iran to attack its neighbors with much of its remaining arsenal. And still, there would be no guarantees that the strait could be swiftly reopened. Allies also cautioned that extensive damage to Iran’s infrastructure might produce a failed state at the war’s end, which could create a refugee crisis and a dangerous breeding ground for terrorism and violence. Since late last month, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed much of Iran’s senior leadership, the military campaign has moved quickly (but not smoothly) toward some of the administration’s discernible objectives. American forces have hit missile sites, naval assets, and fortified positions along Iran’s southern coast near the Strait of Hormuz. Trump has said that the bombing of Kharg Island, a centerpiece of Iran’s energy infrastructure, completely destroyed the island’s military sites, though oil facilities were conspicuously untouched. The strait, effectively closed by threats of Iranian mines, drones, and attacks on ships, has proved more difficult to reopen than to threaten. Shipping traffic has dwindled. Insurance costs have spiked. Trump is known to pay close attention to financial markets, and he announced the five-day extension just as Wall Street opened this morning. The markets immediately rebounded, and the price of oil fell. The president acknowledged the link to reporters soon after. “The price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as a deal is done,” he said. “I guess it already is today.” One former administration official told us that even the prospect of resuming talks is enough to give Trump cover to extend his self-imposed deadline. It has also bought the president more time to consider whether he wants to deploy ground troops to the region, perhaps a strike force to seize Kharg Island. Such an operation—pushed vigorously in public and private by allies such as Senator Lindsey Graham—could force Iran to give up control of the strait but would also come at a cost: The fighting would likely be fierce, and Trump has expressed reluctance to risk numerous American casualties. [Read: The Iran war’s next threat is to food and water ] Allies, too, have hesitated to turn to force to reopen the strait. European and Indo-Pacific partners—Japan, Australia, and several NATO states—have resisted direct military involvement, instead urging diplomacy or limited escort missions through the strait. The coalition Trump once envisioned has not materialized. Against this backdrop, the president’s messaging has grown more improvisational. On Truth Social, Trump has alternated between declaring overwhelming victory and calling for other nations to assume responsibility for the strait’s security. His suggestion today that the passage could soon reopen under U.S.–Iranian management lacks confirmation from Tehran. The strikes threatened on Iran’s power grid—once imminent—have been paused, not canceled, and made contingent on diplomatic momentum that one side insists exists and the other denies outright. Meanwhile, the fighting continues, with no clear end in sight.
- What Trump Wants From CubaUpdated at 5:34 p.m. ET on April 3, 2026 This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Since January, the Trump administration has effectively blockaded nearly all oil shipments to Cuba, causing conditions on the island to deteriorate dramatically. Electricity is becoming more unreliable, food is spoiling, and a collapsing medical system now risks creating a major health crisis. Some hospitalized Cubans have reportedly already died as a result of the blockade. According to my colleague Vivian Salama, a staff writer who has been reporting on Cuba, it’s all part of the White House’s plan to choke the island, destabilizing Cuba’s top leadership and forcing its government into diplomatic talks with the United States. In today’s Daily, she and I discuss the Trump administration’s possible intentions for the country, and consider who stands to gain from such a sharp escalation. Will Gottsegen: What is the White House’s plan for Cuba right now? Vivian Salama: Late last year, the administration started clamping down on Venezuela economically and militarily with the forward-looking objective of doing the same thing to Cuba. For decades, Cuba has been highly dependent on Venezuela for economic purposes, primarily oil. By cutting off Venezuela’s ability to export oil, the administration was also hoping that it would inflict intense pain on and ultimately spur dramatic change in the Cuban government. What the White House wants to happen remains sort of opaque. It says that Venezuela’s leaders need to go, but it doesn’t explicitly talk about regime change. It’s important to put Venezuela into that context, because even though the administration forcefully removed Nicolás Maduro in January, it did so while still maintaining, for now at least, his regime. Trump is working with Maduro’s vice president in Venezuela, and would potentially do something similar in Cuba. Will we see ground incursions, or a dramatic raid like we saw in Venezuela? That is a big question mark. Will: The Trump administration has indicated that it’s more interested in changing Cuba’s leadership than it is in toppling the current regime. Why might that be the administration’s goal, as opposed to ending communism on the island? Vivian: The goal is to pursue commercial and economic interests for the United States. That is really what President Trump is all about. The ideological element is not a primary factor for him, as it is for many Cuban Americans. Trump will have achieved something historic and significant if he is able to put in place a Cuban government, or a Cuban leader, at least, who is more compliant with the U.S. so that the U.S. can go and invest in Cuba. Anything beyond that is sort of in the weeds for him. Will: Why is Trump choosing this moment to act? Vivian: Every president, Democrat and Republican, has mused over the idea of regime change in Cuba. It has just been a matter of how they would achieve that. This has been one of Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s primary objectives since he took public office. He has long called for regime change in Cuba. He has long called for a democratic transition in Venezuela, and he was able to convince Trump that this is tied to two things: his immigration and anti-narcotics crackdown and his broader ambitions for the U.S. to reassert its dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Trump is also very much focused on his legacy. He’s a second-term president, and, barring a dramatic change to the Constitution, he will leave office. He wants to do things that other presidents talked about and didn’t do. The Iran war is among those. And so is a dramatic realignment of the Cuban government. Will: What has the current oil blockade done to Cuba? Vivian: Garbage is accumulating in the streets because there’s no gas for the trucks to go around and pick it up. People are reportedly dying or in very, very bad conditions because hospital generators are now failing. The city of Havana—and the country in general—has plunged into darkness multiple times because its power grid has completely failed. This is exactly the impact that the Trump administration was looking to achieve in order to bring the Cuban regime to its knees. Cubans have gone through periods similar to this in the past. They are used to sort of hunkering down and relying on the bare minimum to function. But in this case, it’s been so bad that it seems the government has at least been forced to start negotiating with Washington. Will: What has Russia’s role been here, as Cuba’s longtime ally? I know the Kremlin has said it’s going to continue sending aid to the island. Vivian: After the blockade started, a Russian oil tanker set sail for Cuba. That was before the United States eased sanctions on Russian oil last month to help mitigate the Iran war’s effects on the global economy. And the tanker didn’t turn around, even when Trump later amended those sanctions to bar Russia from supplying oil to Cuba specifically. Russia’s move was seen as a sign that its relationship with Cuba remains pretty tight, but this wasn’t a purely humanitarian gesture. It was also an attempt to poke at the United States, and there were questions about whether or not there would be a confrontation. Then Trump said on Sunday that he would allow the tanker to reach Cuba, effectively breaking his own blockade. The sense among administration officials that I talked with was that they have inflicted enough pain for the Cuban government to want to talk—they do not want the situation to reach a point where it spurs an exodus of Cubans, or leads to a pandemic of some kind on the island. There are worries that there could be an outbreak of cholera because of conditions there. Russia always looks to benefit when there is geopolitical disarray. With the U.S. so focused on the war in Iran, Russia has stood to benefit both with regard to its own conflict in Ukraine and elsewhere in the world. Cuba is a very small example of that. The fear is that if the U.S. continues to grant permissions to Russia, or turn a blind eye to Russia, the country could rebuild, once again, to be the kind of global menace that we saw in the years leading up to its invasion of Ukraine. Related: Trump’s eye is already on Cuba. The Iran war’s next threat is to food and water. 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- Airfare Is Just the BeginningThis is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Walk into any American airport today, and you might end up in a security line that extends past the baggage claim. You might hear a muffled voice announcing over the intercom that your flight has—once again—been delayed. And you might have to pay even more for this experience. Airfare has spiked since the start of the war in Iran, as airlines cope with rising jet-fuel prices and the new risks of flying in and around the Middle East. Business Insider found that the average price of a flight from one end of the United States to the other rose from $167 in February to $414 in mid-March. Outside the country, ticket prices for major routes connecting Europe and Asia have surged, per data from Alton Aviation Consultancy: The Hong Kong–London route is 560 percent more expensive than it was last month, and the Bangkok-Frankfurt route is up 505 percent. (Flights between the two continents would ordinarily pass through the Middle East.) And tickets are likely to stay expensive for some time. Americans are already seeing prices rise at airports and at the pump—the average cost of gas in the U.S. has gone from $2.98 a gallon to $3.98 a gallon over the past month—but the breadth of the war’s economic consequences is just starting to become clear. The energy shock could have broad implications for the prices of all kinds of consumer goods, including clothing, food, and computers (also: party balloons). What’s happening to plane tickets is a preview of what might come next for other industries. “Airfares are certainly the canary in the coal mine,” my colleague Annie Lowrey, who writes about economic policy, told me. “No other major consumer good or service I can think of is as sensitive to energy costs.” Jet fuel makes up roughly 30 percent of the cost of an airline ticket, and much of that increase is getting passed on to customers. When Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz earlier this month, it pinched off the world’s oil supply, and prices shot up. The average price of jet fuel spiked more than 58 percent during the first week of the war and has increased more than 10 percent each week since. Airlines began feeling that strain right away, which soon started to bear on tickets—dynamic-pricing systems allowed companies to change what they charge for each seat in real time. Airlines have always had razor-thin margins. Fuel is the industry’s largest operating cost and can represent about 25 percent of a company’s total yearly spending. American Airlines recently said that it will be forced to spend an additional $400 million this quarter. “If oil prices stay where they are today, that’s 11 billion [dollars] of expense for us,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said this week. He also suggested that, for the company to break even, it would need to raise ticket prices another 20 percent. That direct correlation—as fuel prices go up, so does airfare—helps explain why the Iran war’s effects on plane tickets have been so immediate. A similar dynamic is at play in the trucking industry: When the cost of diesel goes up, so do the rates for ground-shipping contracts. The other big-picture issue affecting airfare has to do with flight capacity. More than 52,000 flights to and from the Middle East have been canceled since the start of the war. Flights that haven’t been canceled might have to take longer paths around the Middle East, using up more fuel and putting more pressure on airlines to compensate elsewhere, Martin Dresner, a supply-chain professor at the University of Maryland, told me. The Iran war could also raise the prices of semiconductors (reliant on helium, much of which comes from the Middle East), clothing (many synthetic fibers, including polyester, are made from oil), and aluminum-based products, as well as any consumer goods that travel via air freight. Fuel surcharges account for roughly 19 percent of the cost of a package delivery in the United States, and as shipping and transport costs go up, so could the price of groceries, Annie said. Businesses that sell nonperishable goods such as computers and clothing would likely react by selling off inventory and then, eventually, increasing sticker prices. Many of those effects won’t be felt immediately. Take urea, a nitrogen-based fertilizer that’s integral to modern farming. Much of its global supply comes from the Middle East, and urea prices have increased by 50 percent since the war began. Although farmers may take a direct hit on those prices, consumers may not actually experience a price shift for a while, thanks to the nature of the agricultural supply chain. Reduced urea leads to reduced crop yields, which leads to fewer and more expensive food products—a far more indirect relationship than that of jet fuel and airfare. Were the strait to fully open right now, some of those potential issues would never materialize, and the global oil supply would start to recover. But even if the war were to end today, “we’re looking at months ’til production is fully restored, at least,” Jason Miller, a supply-chain professor at Michigan State University, told me. Airlines will see elevated costs until the oil supply stabilizes—which is likely why United Airlines’ CEO has been telling people to book their tickets for summer travel as soon as possible, before prices go even higher. Ultimately, this economic squeeze could last longer than the war that created it. Related: American aviation is near collapse. The worst airport in America Here are three new stories from The Atlantic: Spencer Kornhaber on the surprising reason for the new homophobia Building tanks while the Ukrainians master drones Kristi Noem is gone. Now mass deportations can really begin. Today’s News President Trump signed an executive order to pay TSA workers, bypassing Congress after lawmakers failed to agree on a broader Department of Homeland Security funding bill. This comes after House GOP leaders rejected a measure the Senate adopted early this morning to reopen DHS without funding immigration enforcement. The FBI said that hackers targeted Director Kash Patel’s personal email, after an Iranian-government-linked group claimed responsibility and posted alleged stolen materials online. The agency said that most of the data appear to be old and that they do not involve government information, and that it is working to investigate the situation. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the U.S. military campaign in Iran is “on or ahead of schedule” and could end in weeks, although he acknowledged that “we have some work to do.” Meanwhile, Israel’s defense minister said that Israeli strikes on Iran will “intensify and expand” because Tehran has ignored warnings “to stop firing missiles at Israel’s civilian population.” Dispatches The Books Briefing: Let a book annoy you, Emma Sarappo writes. Explore all of our newsletters here. Evening Read Illustration by Lucy Naland. Source: Getty. The Very Powerful Men Who Think Introspection Is Dumb By Thomas Chatterton Williams America’s tech oligarchs are pathologically unreflective. From their perspective, looking inward is a waste of time better spent moving fast and breaking things, or hoovering up money and consolidating power. That thesis received further confirmation earlier this month when the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said that he engages in “zero” introspection—or at least “as little as possible.” Andreessen, a billionaire AI evangelist, was speaking to the podcaster David Senra, who enthusiastically approved. Senra explained that he had learned introspection was useless by reading 410 biographies of entrepreneurs. “Sam Walton didn’t wake up thinking about his internal self,” Senra said, referring to the Walmart magnate. “He just woke up like, I like building Walmart; I’m gonna keep building more Walmarts, and just kept doing it over and over again.” Read the full article. 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