Global oil markets received an expensive reminder this week that geopolitics still matter

Oil Shocks

Global oil markets received an expensive reminder this week that geopolitics still matter. Crude prices surged past $90 a barrel, the highest since 2023 and the largest one-week jump on record, after the Iran strikes. Traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil passes daily, is clogged up. Tanker companies have begun avoiding it after vessels were damaged in Iranian attacks.

Since the fighting began, the price of US benchmark crude has risen more than $20 per barrel, while gasoline prices in the US have already climbed 32 cents per gallon. Iraq and Kuwait have already reduced production, and China has warned it may halt fuel exports.

The White House has tried to calm markets by easing sanctions on India’s purchases of Russian oil and offering US-backed insurance and naval escorts for tankers willing to cross the strait.

Rystad Energy estimates that if the strait remains closed for three weeks, as much as 15 million barrels per day could be shut in. Energy Secretary Chris Wright insists the disruption will last “weeks, not months.”

Unwelcome Job News

The latest US jobs report showed that payrolls shrank by 92,000 jobs, in both the public and private sectors. While unemployment remains low at 4.4 percent, businesses have slowed hiring amid uncertainty over immigration restrictions, shifting trade policies and broader economic instability. The White House pointed to a labor dispute that sidelined about 30,000 health care workers and severe winter storms in the Northeast.

Republican strategists worry the weak jobs report could complicate the party’s message heading into the midterm elections, with affordability already a dominant voter concern. Administration officials insist the slowdown is temporary and argue that the benefits of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” will emerge soon. But the report of 92,000 fewer jobs will probably not be printed on campaign posters.

Turbulent Sabbatical

Vinay Prasad will leave the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research next month, after less than a year in the role. Prasad became a polarizing figure by raising the evidentiary bar for approving new medicines. Supporters said he was restoring scientific rigor, but critics — including pharmaceutical companies — argued he was blocking therapies that patients with rare and terminal diseases were waiting for.

Prasad’s tenure had already been turbulent: He was forced out last summer by Trump, then rehired weeks later after lobbying from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Prasad also clashed with vaccine makers, including Moderna, whose flu vaccine application he initially rejected before the FDA reversed course days later.

The FDA described Prasad’s departure as the end of a one-year sabbatical from his academic post at UC–San Francisco — but it looks suspiciously similar to a resignation.

Farage in Florida

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage is traveling to Mar-a-Lago this week in a very public effort to influence US policy toward Britain — right when relations between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer appear to be deteriorating. Farage says he plans to raise his opposition to Starmer’s Chagos Islands agreement with senior Trump officials and possibly the president himself.

Starmer’s deal would transfer sovereignty over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, while allowing Britain and the US to lease back the key military base on Diego Garcia. Farage calls it, “The worst deal in history,” echoing language that Trump understands well.

Starmer had already denied use of the Diego Garcia base, among others, to the US in its Iran strikes. Trump said, “We’re not dealing with a Winston Churchill here.” Farage hopes to leverage Trump support to “Make Britain Great Again.”

The Donroe Doctrine

President Donald Trump announced this week that the US is prepared to use military force against drug cartels across Latin America, unveiling the plan at the inaugural Shield of the Americas Summit in Florida alongside several regional leaders.

Already earlier in the week, the US military joined Ecuadorian forces against “narco-terrorist organizations.” Trump told attending governments that cooperation would be simple: Identify cartel locations and the US would handle the rest. Seventeen countries signed a joint declaration creating the Americas Counter Cartel Coalition.

The initiative is part of the administration’s reassertion of US influence in the hemisphere while curbing drug trafficking, migration flows, and China’s growing presence — an approach sometimes called the “Donroe Doctrine.” Leaders attending the summit included Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa, Argentina’s Javier Milei, and El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1103)