Andrew here.
After President Trump’s decision to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, there are a cascade of questions on Monday morning. The most pressing that has so far gone largely overlooked is this: What about China, one of Iran’s biggest economic partners?
Would Beijing quietly support efforts by Tehran to retaliate against American interests? Will it continue to prop up Iran’s economy by buying the country’s oil? If it stands by Iran, how could that impact the U.S. trade negotiations with China? And, perhaps most critically, what does this mean for President Xi Jinping’s calculations about Taiwan, and how Trump might react to an effort to take the island?
I spent the weekend talking and texting with policymakers and analysts in Washington to understand what may come next. Perhaps the most intriguing perspective I gleaned was that the U.S. action might actually grant China greater leverage in its broader negotiations with Trump — not less — over trade and nearly everything else.
“The U.S.’s call for China to counsel Iran to not close the Strait of Hormuz adds to the list of things Washington needs from Beijing, the others being its rare earth exports, cracking down on the fentanyl trade, and reducing its trade surplus,” Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told me. “As a result, China’s potential leverage grows and the costs to the U.S. from escalating in any domain against China grows.”
Many in Washington say that China would prefer to de-escalate the situation as quickly as possible. Bonnie Glaser, who runs the Indo-Pacific program at the German Marshall Fund explained: “Chinese interests are in a cease-fire, not a wider war. I don’t think the Chinese will support Iranian strikes on the U.S.”
Indeed, the truth is that “China is much more important to Iran than vice versa,” Ryan Hass, a senior fellow and director at the Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, told me. Consider: About 90 percent of Iran’s oil exports go to China, Hass said — but that represents just 10 percent of China’s oil imports.
What does all of this mean for Taiwan? The Ukraine-Russia conflict has long been viewed as a dress rehearsal for a potential flare-up with China, but the Iran attacks may offer more significant insights. Many Taiwanese were worried that if the U.S. didn’t stand by Israel, it might not come to Taipei’s aid, Glazer said. She added: “Now that the U.S. has conducted the strike, Taiwan will be somewhat reassured.”
Still, there’s a lot of nuance here: Kennedy suggested that Xi “may find that Trump’s unpredictability raises the risks over being more aggressive on Taiwan, but if the U.S. quickly backs down and doesn’t develop a clear overall strategy, Xi might sense greater room for maneuver.”
HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING
Republicans’ domestic-policy bill continues to evolve in the Senate. The upper chamber’s parliamentarian, Elizabeth MacDonough, rejected a provision that would have limited lawsuits seeking to block President Trump’s executive orders; she already rebuffed an effort to push some of the costs of food aid programs onto states. A big question is how she will rule on Republican efforts to lower the price tag of the bill via novel accounting tricks.
Tesla begins testing its Robotaxis in Austin. The carmaker started a limited rollout on Sunday of its autonomous vehicle program, in which safety monitors sit in the front seat and service may be suspended during bad weather. Elon Musk has called autonomous vehicles key to Tesla’s future; still, the company remains far behind rivals including Google’s Waymo, and its technology remains under scrutiny by regulators.
Bank of New York Mellon approaches Northern Trust about a merger. The lender reached out to its smaller rival about a potential deal, which would create a new giant bank, DealBook hears, confirming a report by The Wall Street Journal. There’s no guarantee a deal will be reached, though the Trump administration has shown an openness to financial services consolidation.
The Fed and inflation data are on deck this week. Jay Powell, the central bank’s chair, is set to testify before Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday; expect questions about when the Fed might start cutting rates. That decision will likely be shaped by readouts like the latest Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which is scheduled for Friday. Economic bellwethers including FedEx and Nike are set to report this week as well.
The economics of the Strait of Hormuz
Whether Iran will actually move to close the Strait of Hormuz along its southern border — or if it even has the capability to do so — is still unclear.
But Iran’s threat on Sunday to close the crucial shipping corridor as retaliation comes with big risks for the energy industry, shipping firms and other companies around the world that rely on the strait, Danielle Kaye reports.
Here are the latest aftershocks from President Trump’s move:
-
The price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, came down to about $76 on Monday morning after having opened above $81 in Asia. It’s still at its highest level since January. U.S. markets appear likely to open slightly up, while so-called safe-haven assets like gold were little changed.
-
Trump administration officials conceded that the state of Iran’s nuclear program remained unclear, with the fate of the country’s near-weapons-grade uranium still unknown. Iranian state media reported that the country’s parliament is weighing whether to suspend cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
-
Israel and Iran are continuing to exchange rocket fire, with explosions taking place in southern Israel and in Tehran.
The strait is crucial for the flow of oil and natural gas. Roughly one fifth of global oil products pass through the waterway, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In 2024, that amounted to an average of 20 million barrels of oil each day.
Joachim Klement, an analyst at Panmure Liberum, estimated that a total shutdown of the strait could cause stock markets to drop as much as 20 percent.
Saudi Arabia is the biggest exporter relying on the strait, accounting for nearly 40 percent of the oil exports that moved through there last year. Saudi Aramco, the kingdom’s national oil company, would likely take a hit.
Iraq is the second biggest exporter, followed by the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Iran itself.
China is the top destination for oil transported through the strait. “Iran closing that strait is a very negative ramification for China,” Jason Miller, a professor of supply chain management at Michigan State University, told DealBook. Chinese oil refiners would be among the most affected companies in that country, Miller said.
More than 80 percent of oil exports through the strait end up in Asian markets, according to the E.I.A. Besides China, other top destinations are India, South Korea and Japan.
Higher energy costs would affect everyone, including the U.S. “We’ve got uncertainty about tariffs and tariff policy,” Miller said. “Now, we’re adding uncertainty about energy prices to the mix, because we don’t know what Iran will decide to do.”
As a result, many U.S. companies might see more value in taking a wait-and-see approach to new investments, he added.
Shipping firms are also jolted by the Hormuz threat. On Sunday, Greece, one of the biggest homes of such companies, cautioned shipowners to “reassess passage” through the Strait of Hormuz, Bloomberg reported.
Some shipowners have already paused transits in the Strait of Hormuz because of mounting security concerns, Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at BIMCO, an international shipping association, told DealBook.
Global commerce could be roiled. Any individual company that ships through the strait would be impacted, though the energy industry is the key concern, Eugene Gholz, a professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, told DealBook.
The world reacts
The U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities is continuing to ripple around the world. Here’s what global leaders are saying about President Trump’s move.
-
“Iran is harmed, but also harmed is U.S. credibility — as a country and as a party to any international negotiations,” Fu Cong, China’s ambassador to the United Nations, told China’s state broadcaster on Sunday.
-
Russia, a longtime ally of Iran, condemned the attack, though President Vladimir Putin hasn’t issued a public statement. Tehran’s foreign minister has gone to Moscow to ask for help.
-
Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry called for de-escalation and a political solution, but stopped short of condemning the U.S., as it had Israel when that country launched strikes earlier in the month.
-
European officials — including Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat; President Emmanuel Macron of France; and Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain — also called for de-escalation.
The (estimated) costs of Operation Midnight Hammer
The U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities involved some of the most sophisticated weapons of war available on Earth. How much it actually cost is unclear, but here’s some of the rough math.
-
Seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers were used to carry out the mission, flying from their home base in Missouri, according to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Others were flown west as a decoy. They cost about $2.1 billion each.
-
Fourteen GBU-57 A/B bombs were dropped on the Natanz and Fordo enrichment sites, Caine said. Known as the Massive Ordnance Penetrator, the 30,000-pound weapon was designed to attack fortified underground facilities like Fordo. It’s unknown how much each bomb costs, though estimates put the figure at north of $5 million apiece.
-
More than two dozen Tomahawk missiles were fired at the Iranian facility at Isfahan from a Navy submarine. They cost about $2 million each.
Of course, this doesn’t factor in flight time for the B-2s — flight-hour estimates range from $130,00 to $150,000 — or the costs associated with the fighter jets, refueling aircraft and other vehicles involved in the mission.
Remembering Fred Smith, FedEx’s founder
Fred Smith, who turned a Yale college paper into FedEx, the global shipping giant, and amassed a billion-dollar fortune and political influence, died on Saturday. He was 80.
It’s hard to overstate how Smith, a former Marine pilot, overhauled how packages are sent around the world. From The Times’s obit:
Aside from seeing the need for national overnight delivery, Mr. Smith’s greatest innovation was a hub-and-spoke system of routes. He based the sorting of packages in Memphis, where he found an unused airplane hangar. He flew his planes at night, when the skies were relatively empty.
A novelty at the time, the hub system has since been adopted throughout the airfreight industry.
Other milestones in Mr. Smith’s career included adopting bar codes on packaging from retail; outmaneuvering competitors like Emery Worldwide; and closing down an unsuccessful document delivery service, Zapmail, before it would have been swamped by email. He changed the corporate name from Federal Express to FedEx and embarked on ground shipping, which put FedEx in competition with itself but gave customers a more affordable option. As a result, FedEx gained insulation from the booms and busts of the broader economy.
As for that college paper? Smith’s professor gave it a C.
THE SPEED READ
Deals
-
Prosus, the big European-based tech investor, said its annual earnings jumped 47 percent year-on-year and that it was confident its $4.7 billion takeover of Just Eat Takeaway.com would win regulatory approval. (Reuters)
-
“Andreessen Horowitz Backs AI Startup With Slogan ‘Cheat at Everything’,” (Bloomberg)
Politics, policy and regulation
-
Microsoft’s role in helping suspend an international prosecutor’s email account underscored Europe’s fears of how President Trump might use U.S. tech dominance as a weapon. (NYT)
-
“What Remains of U.S.A.I.D.?” (NYT)
Best of the rest
-
One way to calculate the global divide in artificial intelligence: Look where A.I. data centers are located. (NYT)
-
“Palm Beach Has Never Been Richer. The Locals Aren’t Pleased.” (NYT)
We’d like your feedback! Please email thoughts and suggestions to [email protected].
Andrew Ross Sorkin is a columnist and the founder of DealBook, the flagship business and policy newsletter at The Times and an annual conference.
Bernhard Warner is a senior editor for DealBook, a newsletter from The Times, covering business trends, the economy and the markets.
Sarah Kessler is the weekend edition editor of the DealBook newsletter and writes features on business.
Michael J. de la Merced has covered global business and finance news for The Times since 2006.
Danielle Kaye is a Times business reporter and a 2024 David Carr Fellow, a program for journalists early in their careers.
The post The China Wild Card appeared first on New York Times.
