Bloomberg播客：伊朗战争致能源市场动荡与地缘博弈

Think this is a crucial week for, hopefully, restarting some diplomatic activity around the resolutions with this war. Clearly, that's what leaders in the region are seeking. Certainly, the neighbors of Iran that have been implicated in this war and continue to face attacks both from Iran and from the Houthi militia, which has a a close alignment with Iran. And we've seen that even today with attacks on the the Riyadh Airport from the Houthis.

So they're looking for some kind of an arrangement that will at least draw close to the active phase of this conflict, create more certainty and predictability about transit through the Strait Of Hormuz, and really put this conflict in the on the back burner. The president, for his part, is looking for something that he can brandish as a victory, and so those those two theories of the case may not align well. It's such an interesting time to be covering, I was telling David I had a source of mine who's been coming to this for decades, text me.

I'll see you at possibly the last UN General Assembly ever. I think that's a a tad fatalistic, but it it is indicative a bit of where multilateralism multilateralism is at this time. In the UN in particular. In the UN in particular. Is has this become outdated? Is this effective anymore other than it does get a lot of these people in the room together, but is that almost as far as it goes? Well, look. There's an enormous amount of activity that goes around along with UNGA every year.

There's an enormous amount of work around climate issues, around development issues, around global education. And so this is not purely an opportunity for security. I think that there are, a lot of people who would like to see some reform to the United Nations system, including president Trump, who would like to see this become a more effective body. But it is still a conduit for the types of conversations and gatherings that can actually make progress at an incremental level on some of the very big issues that are facing the world.

And I think it is a unique opportunity and gathering in which we not only have Gulf leaders, Israeli leaders, but also Iranian leaders coming to New York. And we have seen in the past that that that offers on the sidelines at least some pathway for conversation and dialogue. Suzanne, your your specialty is is energy and energy in the context of of The Middle East, and there was this announcement yesterday from Saudi Aramco that they're not gonna be able to deliver oil to Europe.

And and I'm curious what that says. Obviously, a great disappointment to Europe, obviously, compounding the problems that we've seen with refining globally means for the the global energy market. How should we think about, yes, the damage that its East West pipeline has sustained and what that means for, the the oil market and oil and energy going forward here? I think we're just seeing a huge amount of unpredictability about energy markets.

We've seen some progress in terms of The United States being able to help guide ships and enable at least some passage through the Strait Of Hormuz that has restored about five to 7,000,000 barrels a day of of oil coming out of the The Gulf. But, of course, the Iranians and the Houthis have responded in ways that have now compromised some of the workarounds, particularly the East West pipeline and transit through the Red Sea and the Battle of Mendeh now being potentially locked as a result of the the latest Houthi offensive there.

And so, you know, I think what we're hearing from JPMorgan and other analysts is just that we we really can't predict how energy markets are going to unfold. We are in a tight position, but we haven't seen the kind of exponential escalation in prices that would that would have catastrophic impact on the global economy. We've been able to muddle through in part because of the willingness of the Chinese to downgrade some of their own demand.

If that continues to be the case, we probably can muddle through till the end of the year. But I think there's going to be increasing anxiety. And, obviously, there are political implications around the world here at home for the midterms and for other governments that are facing rising public dissatisfaction with increased prices. Christina, Suzanne Maloney reading the same note as you at that same JPMorgan. Know. That made me feel like I throwing their hands up at me and there.

Label forecast. Yes. I appreciate that. When you look at The Middle East and the difficulties they're having in getting their product to market, how do you think that plays into the power structures in the region if this becomes a consistent problem? You know, that is a source of income for many of these governments. They are trying to diversify. Can they diversify fast enough, and is this going to become an issue for some of these states that rely on these funds to keep their populations happy?

Well, it already is an issue for a number of governments. We've seen the the hardest hitter countries like Qatar and Kuwait that are effectively very much blocked from from export markets. The Qataris built an incredible economy on the basis of their natural gas and their ability to produce and supply in very quick fashion. And that is compromised in a way that's hard to see a long term solution that doesn't involve some kind of a diplomatic resolution of the Strait Of Hormuz.

There are no workarounds for for the, you know, massive gas industry in Qatar right now. So we're we're already seeing those implications. I think, you know, it's not just a question of how quickly can these countries make a transition to a post petroleum economy. The war has implications, very negative implications for that transition because what we've seen is the Iranians, certainly during the active phase of the war and now the Houthis as well, targeting economic infrastructure, whether it's airports, hotels, data centers, which is a big part of the the push for advanced technology and, transitioning the economies.

So, you know, all of this really does come down to one important, priority and imperative for all the governments in the region, which is to find some kind of a denouement to this war even if it is not a full fledged revolution, something that it does enable them to return to their really ambitious plans for remaking their economies and their societies. Suzanne, I know we wanna get to to China here because, of course, we have this big summit taking place in Washington this week.

So let me do it in in this fashion. I I was struck, and I think I have the sequencing right here that we had Riyadh pressuring Beijing to pressure Tehran to do something about the the Houthis. And I I'm curious of how you see China's involvement in this conflict. Of course, we've seen many representatives of these Middle Eastern nations making their way to to Beijing to meet with with leadership there. China has not been actively involved here.

Do you see them playing a more forceful role here in trying to find some resolution to this conflict in the months ahead? I think that's unlikely. I think the Chinese, are quite happy with the current set of circumstances in which The United States is bogged down in a war once again that it appears to be underperforming in in The Middle East, and that, you know, really does distract Washington from perhaps a different approach to China, and it it really diverts some of the resources that The United States would need to have a more active military presence in the Indo Pacific.

So this is a conflict that the Chinese have been able to utilize to demonstrate their own energy resilience. There's always been a lot of discussion about the fact that it's that China is so heavily reliant on oil that emanates from this the The Gulf States, whereas The United States is now one of the leading oil producers in the world. In fact, because the Chinese have built up such an incredible strategic reserve and because they h