One theme ran through the day: the fight over the Strait of Hormuz stopped being about shipping tolls and became a war over infrastructure, while states elsewhere moved to lock down the supply chains that risk now runs through.

Hormuz: from tolls to targets

  • Trump threatened to strike Iranian civilian targets as the US reinstated its blockade of the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran responded by hitting US bases across the Middle East, turning a dispute that began over charging ships for passage into a direct exchange of fire; about a fifth of world oil supply passes through the strait. more
  • The US launched a fresh wave of strikes on Iran on Wednesday, with Trump threatening to hit bridges and power plants next week unless Tehran returns to talks; Iran threatened to block more trade routes, extending a blockade already hitting its ports, shifting the confrontation from disrupting shipping toward destroying fixed infrastructure. more

The bigger picture: pricing risk, controlling supply

  • Iran has not reopened Hormuz, oil transit has slowed to a crawl and Brent is up roughly 10% since US-Iran talks collapsed, while 180 Iranian MPs press for permanent leverage over the chokepoint. more
  • In Europe, Germany is urging the EU to fund two or three competing weapons programmes at once and Chancellor Merz warns that Russia is already waging hybrid war — part of a shift toward securing energy, arms and deterrence as controllable supply chains rather than trusting open markets. more

What to watch next

  • Whether the talks-or-strikes ultimatum produces negotiations or a sustained regional war, and whether either side can halt the escalation before it spreads.
  • Who absorbs the cost of the shift toward security-as-supply-chain, and how long the new premium on risk holds.