Since President Trump launched a new war with Iran, he has portrayed it as a shock-and-awe assault with few lasting consequences, especially for Americans. On Monday in Florida, he called it a “brief disruption.”
Experts say it is rapidly becoming something else entirely: a jolt to the global security order and economy that far exceeds those delivered by other recent conflicts in the Middle East.
Mr. Trump’s war, now nearly two weeks old, is already reshaping travel patterns, energy dependencies, living costs, trade routes and strategic partnerships. Countries typically shielded from regional conflict, like Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates, have faced retaliatory Iranian fire. The fallout could disrupt midterm elections in the United States, tilt the war calculus in Ukraine and force China into a major economic pivot.
Those effects may compound if Mr. Trump presses ahead with the war, particularly if Iran escalates its counterattacks and blocks ship traffic through the critical oil passage of the Strait of Hormuz. Some economists are already invoking a dreaded memory for any U.S. president — the specter of oil-shock-induced stagflation, with growth stalling and prices roaring upward.
“I’m old enough to remember the events of the ’70s, and a world in which oil price spikes were a significant issue both economically and for a president who might be facing elections,” said Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution. “That doesn’t seem to have been priced into the decision making,” she added.
The war is most immediately and viscerally affecting the Middle East. Attacks across the region have killed more than a thousand people and wrought extensive damage to critical infrastructure and the environment — unleashing plumes of noxious smoke and black rain over Tehran after Israeli strikes on fuel depots.
The conflict has shaken the foundation of the Persian Gulf economies, cracking their carefully cultivated images as safe havens in a turbulent region. Iran has launched more attacks on the Gulf countries than it has on Israel, according to an American war monitor, hitting five-star hotels, damaging desalination plants and sending tourists fleeing for evacuation routes.
Airports in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, have come under attack. European officials are still attempting to rescue their citizens who have been marooned in what once seemed like tranquil vacation spots. The U.S. State Department, after initially facing criticism for acting too slowly, said it had organized over two dozen charter flights and had evacuated thousands of Americans from the Middle East.
Experts warn that reputational damage will linger in the Gulf. Beyond the wealth those countries possess, “the real currency was confidence,” Emile Hokayem, a Middle East expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said in a panel discussion this week.
“It wasn’t just the money, it’s the fact that they could realistically tell people it’s a good business environment, you will feel safe,” he added. “We’re immune to regional politics. You can invest here. You can use us for your trade, your airlines, for your comms, your tech and so on. And that’s what the Iranians are after, right?”
For much of the rest of the world, one of the first pains from the war is expected to be felt at the gasoline pump. When tankers stopped moving through the Strait of Hormuz, oil prices jumped above $100 a barrel on global markets, though they have receded somewhat in recent days. Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said on Monday that his country would send 10 warships to the region, potentially to escort vessels through the strait.
Trump administration officials and European leaders have explored options in recent days to reduce gasoline prices, which have risen along with the global price of oil. Economists have begun warning that if the oil shock persists for weeks, it could ignite an escalating set of price increases across economies, while weighing on economic growth — a fate similar to the stagflation that followed the 1979 Iranian revolution.
“Whether history repeats itself all depends on how long this conflict lasts,” researchers at Deutsche Bank wrote this week.
The loss of access to cheap oil is an emerging risk for China — and not the only one. Chinese exporters have become increasingly reliant on Middle Eastern consumers. A disruption to Middle Eastern economies could limit sales of Chinese goods there, undercutting China’s own growth.
The surge in oil prices are, conversely, helping Russia — by bolstering the oil revenues that help to fund Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine. Europeans are also worried that the heavy fighting in the Middle East will indirectly harm Ukrainian defenses: The more interceptor missiles are used by the United States and its allies to counter Iran, the fewer are available to Ukraine for its defense against Russian attacks.
In the United States, the war appears already to be a political liability for Mr. Trump. It has relatively little public support compared to previous wars. Democrats are seizing on rising energy costs to court voters ahead of midterm elections that were already focused on the rising cost of living.
More immediately, it has cast a shadow over an event Mr. Trump had hoped would be a signature American triumph under his presidency: the men’s soccer World Cup, which is set to kick off this summer in the United States, Canada and Mexico. Iran is one of the teams scheduled to compete. But it’s unclear if its team will be able to — and what might happen if it can’t.
Publicly, Mr. Trump has trumpeted the military might that the United States and Israel have poured into the war, while offering shifting explanations for what prompted the attacks on Iran and varying timelines for when it might end. He has acknowledged some costs of the war, including the American service members who have been killed since it began.
The president has largely dismissed other downsides, like oil price increases, as temporary. He has alarmed allies by offering few concrete plans for how Iran’s government will function after the war.
In Europe, that has raised concerns of a cratering Iranian economy that could eventually drive new waves of migrants across the Iran-Turkey border. For Europeans, that summons memories of the continent’s migration crisis a decade ago, when conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and Africa led more than a million people to seek refuge in Europe, leading to a right-wing backlash in countries like Germany.
“The United States and Israel have been waging war against Iran for over a week. We share many of their goals,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz of Germany on Tuesday. “But with each day of the war, more questions arise. We are particularly concerned that there appears to be no common plan for bringing this war to a swift and convincing conclusion.”
Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Rome, and Vivian Nereim from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Jim Tankersley is the Berlin bureau chief for The Times, leading coverage of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
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