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US president says Washington is 'getting very close' to achieving goals as he promises to bomb Iran into 'Stone Ages'
Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell said the Fed is not yet at the moment when it needs to decide whether to "look through" the Iran war energy shock. What they're saying: "It's something we will eventually, maybe, face the question of what to do here. We're not really facing it yet because we don't know what the economic effects will be," Powell told introductory economics students at Harvard University on Monday morning. "We feel like our policy is in a good place for us to wait and see how that turns out." Powell said that the Fed has to consider the economic backdrop against which the shock is occurring. "The broader context is . we've been coming down close to 2% [inflation], post-pandemic, but we've never actually gotten and stayed at 2%," he said. But the Fed chair added that, at least for now, Americans' inflation expectations remain "well-anchored beyond the short term," putting less pressure on the central bank to act now.Powell also joked that maybe the students in the audience should tell him what to do, since they had just completed a problem set on how the Fed should approach such a supply shock. The intrigue: Powell was reluctant to give specific advice to his successor, Kevin Warsh, who is awaiting Senate confirmation. "I'll just say, in general . it's very, very important to stick to your knitting and stick to the things that were actually assigned," Powell said."There's always a time when an administration looks and says, 'It would be good to use [the Fed's tools] for something else,'" he said. "It happens all the time . but we have to be careful to stick to what we're doing." Answering a separate question from a student, Powell offered more insight into how he builds consensus at the Fed. "I think an underrated skill is in listening to people," he said. "If you listen to people, and you hear them . and they understand that you're actually listening to them, and not just communicating at them — for most of the people, most of the time, that's going
The White House is considering lifting sanctions on Iranian oil that's at sea to keep oil prices down, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday. Why it matters: The administration is pulling out all the stops — even easing up an economic threat to its enemy in war — to keep down oil prices. The latest: The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark, spiked 10% in just the past 24 hours, driving increasing worries among investors. Brent is now around $111 per barrel — nearly 60% higher than pre-war levels. Zoom in: "In the coming days, we may unsanction the Iranian oil that's on the water," Bessent told Fox Business Thursday morning. He said that would make up about 140 million barrels — about 10 days to two weeks of supply."In essence, we'd be using the Iranian barrels against the Iranians to keep the price down for the next 10 or 14 days, as we continue this campaign. So, we have lots of levers." The big picture: The White House has been able for the past few weeks to contain prices with various assurances and policies — promising tanker escorts through the critical Strait of Hormuz, waiving the Jones Act, and temporarily lifting sanctions on Russian oil. Zoom out Lifting sanctions on Iranian oil would be a remarkable next step — as it was something Iranians were asking for in negotiations last year. The White House referred Axios' questions about Iranian sanctions to the Treasury Department, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment or more details. The bottom line: The administration appears to be conceding something in war that it was unwilling to give in peace, says Nicholas Mulder, a sanctions expert and professor at Cornell University. "The U.S. has to dial back sanctions to offset the second order effect of war," he says. "It speaks to the instability of the situation."
President Trump says he is in talks on building coalition to open up crucial waterway
Democrats on Tuesday flipped a Republican-leaning Florida state House seat that encompasses President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, per AP. The big picture: Democrat Emily Gregory beat the Trump-endorsed Republican Jon Maples in a special election in the Palm Beach County-based district that the president won by 11 points. Trump voted for Maples by mail, despite repeatedly railing against mail-in voting. Zoom out: Republicans have been getting creamed in dozens of state legislative elections since Trump took office last year. Democratic candidates running for state legislative seats this year have outperformed 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris' vote totals by nearly 11 points, according to The Downballot, a site that tracks congressional and state-level elections.The sluggish GOP voter turnout is deeply concerning Republican strategists ahead of the midterm elections. Reality check: Though Florida Republicans are disappointed by the outcome, they're still expressing confidence they'll keep the governorship and a U.S. Senate this in the fall midterms. Republicans have not lost a statewide race in Florida since 2018, and the party maintains control of the state legislature. What they're saying: "A slow-turnout state House special election is a snapshot of local quirks, candidate dynamics, and turnout math — not some grand verdict," said Republican National Committee Senior Adviser Danielle Alvarez Tuesday night. The other side: "Donald Trump's own neighbors just sent a crystal clear message: They are furious and ready for change," Democratic National Committee Chairman Ken Martin said in a Tuesday night statement. Marc Caputo contributed reporting
DUBAI, March 23 (Reuters) - An attack on Iran's southern coast and islands will lead to Gulf routes being cut with the laying of sea mines, the country's Defence Council said on Monday according to state media. The U.S. is considering plans to occupy or blockade Iran's Kharg Island, the country's main oil export hub, to pressure Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping, according to Axios
Senators Rand Paul and Markwayne Mullin during the latter's DHS confirmation hearing
A day after President Trump said he did not want a compromise, Senate Republicans sent Democrats a plan that would break off ICE enforcement funding and reopen the rest of the department
While pro-establishment crowds celebrate Khamenei's appointment as his father's successor, others believe it signals no change to how Iran is ruled
The Department of Defense had required reporters to agree to certain rules on what information they could gather in order to maintain access to the Pentagon
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is sending an amphibious assault ship, the USS Tripoli, and its Marine expeditionary unit to the Middle East, a senior U.S. official confirmed to Axios on Friday. Why it matters: The deployment will add thousands of Marines, several warships, and F-35 fighter jets to support those already in the region, the U.S. official said. The U.S. official said U.S. Central Command asked for the new force in order to have more options for military operations against Iran. The Marine expeditionary unit will be able to conduct ground operations if ordered. The U.S. official declined to comment on that possibility. Driving the news: The Marine expeditionary force is moving into the region as Iran continues to target traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, driving up global oil, shipping and insurance prices. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Thursday that U.S. Navy escorts for commercial ships in the Strait could begin "soon." Bessent said the disruptions have already cost the U.S. $11 billion.Sources with knowledge said that before such escorts would begin, the U.S. military is planning potential operations for taking out land-based anti-ship missiles that the Iranians have deployed in the Strait area. 13 U.S. military members have died in the conflict as of Friday, following the crash of a refueling tanker aircraft in Iraq. What they're saying: "We're on plan to defeat, destroy, disable all of their meaningful military capabilities at a pace the world has never seen before," Hegseth insisted in a news conference Friday. "But it's not just that Iran doesn't have a functioning Air Force, or that their entire Navy is at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, or their missile force is shrinking daily.""They also don't have the ability to build more. That's the most important component I'd like to emphasize today," he said.Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair Gen. Dan Caine said that U.S. Central Command will continue to "destroy the Iranian Navy to ensure freedom of navi
Data: Financial Modeling Prep; Chart: Axios Visuals In the first week of the American and Israeli attack on Iran, the economic ripples were looking pretty minimal. But as Week 2 begins, the risks to the global economy are growing much more serious. The big picture: You can't decapitate the leadership of a country of 90 million people, with expansive military and intelligence capabilities, in the heart of some of the world's most economically important supply chains, without a huge cost. The hours and days and weeks ahead are all about quantifying that cost. Zoom in: Oil skyrocketed 25% overnight, to just under $120 a barrel, fueling worries that higher energy costs will stoke inflation and curb spending by U.S. consumers. Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index plunged more than 5%. That's the highest oil price since about four years ago, when energy prices surged due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine.Patrick De Haan — a widely cited gas price expert and an analyst for GasBuddy — estimates there's an 80% chance the national average gas price will hit $4 per gallon in the next month. The latest: As of 5am ET, a barrel of the global crude oil benchmark was going for about $107 on futures markets, up 15% from Friday and 47% from 10 days ago, before the Iran attack. Brent crude prices approached $120 overnight before receding on reports of coordinated global action to release oil reserves. The oil price rise is poised to translate into a rapid increase in the cost of retail gasoline, which was already up about 51 cents per gallon before the weekend run-up in oil prices. The risk of a broader economic slump is rising with the disruption to oil supplies. S&P 500 futures are down 1.3% overnight, setting Wall Street up for its third consecutive day of losses. Japan's Nikkei index was down 5.2% and South Korea's KOSPI down 6%, reflecting those economies' more direct dependence on Middle Eastern oil now at risk of a protracted blockade. Of note: The odds of a U.S. recession this year spiked t