Trump Calls for Iran De-escalation; Oil and LNG Jump

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news.
Good morning, I'm Karen Moscow and I'm John Tucker.
Here are these stories we're following today.
Well, John, President Trump is pressing for a de escalation
of attacks on Middle East energy assets after Iranian and
Israeli strikes on major gas hubs jolted global markets. Hours
after Israel carried out a strike on a key gas
field in Iran, Iran retaliated by hitting energy infrastructure in
the Gulf, causing damage to the world's largest liquefied natural
gas export plant. Begin more from Bloomberg Middle East correspondent
Jumana Persecchi in Dubai yesterday evening.
While Cutter managed to successfully intercept four incoming ballistic missiles,
one of them did manage to penetrate and to cause
quote extensive damage. This is per a press release that
was put out by Cutter Energies, and that word, that
description extensive damage is what is impacting global markets today.
And clearly this is one of the most important consequential
export facilities in the world, which accounts for about twenty
percent of the world supply of LNG. So the response
from the Gulf states in the last twenty four hours
has been one of extreme anger.
M's Bloomberg and Middle East corresponded Jumana Barsechi on a
post on social media. President Trump said that neither the
US nor Cutter was involved in the Israeli operation targeting
the Iranian field. He called on the Islamic Republic to
act with restraint, and again the.
Escalation having a ripple effect across the energy markets. As
we said, the price of Brent crude is up to
one hundred and fifteen dollars of barrel, and European natural
gas up twenty four percent this morning. Dan Mortaw covers
the energy markets for Bloomberg.
Now we're not talking about okay, once the Strait is open,
let's we'll get things rolling again in a matter of weeks.
When we're talking damage to these facilities, I mean we're
talking now potentially a matter of money. That production could
be offline, and we won't know the details for a
little while here, but traders are going to start pricing
in that risk of longer and larger supply outages, and
that's going to be a big problem for the global economy.
It's Bloomberg. Stan Marta again noting that European benchmark futures
jumped as much as thirty five percent, pushing LG prices
to more than double their pre war levels.
Well John Bloomberg News has learned the FBI is investigating
whether Joe Can to resign his position as a top
counter terrorism official this week in protest at the around
war improperly shared classified information. Sources say the investigation precedes
Ken's resignation on Tuesday, but it comes as the Justice
Department has undertaken multiple investigations over the last year into
political foes of President Trump and Fetcher J.
Palaces it's too soon to know the impact of surging
oil prices on the US economy. He says the Central
Bank won't cut rates again until inflation cools, and has
heard right here in Bloomberg Radio talked about the impact
of the war on inflation.
We don't know how big these effects are going to be,
and I don't want to characterize them in any way.
Of course, people are already seeing gas prices. Gas prices
are up almost a dollar a gallon. We hope that
isn't for a long period of time, and of course
people will feel that, but I don't want to speculate
about what that might mean, because honestly, that would sound
like I have some idea of what's actually going to happen,
and I don't think anybody really does.
The Federal Reserve yesterday decided to leeberates unchanged for a
second straight.
Meeting, and in a more surprising move here, John Powell
also commented on the ongoing investigation at the FED by
the Department of Justice. Powell says he won't be resigning
as a member of the Fed's Board of Governors for now.
I have no intention of leaving the board until the
investigation is well and truly over with transparency and finality,
and I would refer you to the statement that was
in the Fed's brief that you will have seen and
I won't have anything more for you on that.
And Powell's term as Chair expires in May, but he
could remain on the rate setting Federal Open Market Committee
as a governor. The FED chief also said he would
continue to serve as chair if his successor, Kevin Walsh,
is not confirmed by the end of his term.
In the Middle East War, the backdrop of a key
meeting in Washington today, Japan's Prime Minister is going to
meet with President Trump. Let's get more from Washington and
Bloomberg Sammy Morris.
Prime Minister Sinai Takeiichi says her upcoming visit with President
Trump is going to be a challenge. Trump criticized Japan
for rebuffing his demand for warships to help secure the
Strait of Hormuz. Takeiichi ruled out deploying naval assets to
the conflict zone, citing Japan's tight constitutional limits. Her trip
to Washington is seen as a test of her leadership
on the world stage. World leaders will be watching how
she manages the fallout from President Trump's request In Washington,
Amy Morris, Bloomberg Radio.
All right, Amy, thank you. Staying in Washington. Oklahoma Senator
Mark Wayne Mullen faced tough questions from senators at his
confirmation hearing to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Senator
Ran Paul scolded Mullen for publicly applauding a neighbor's assault
on Paul a couple of years ago. And here is
this exchange between Paul and Mullen.
Haven't I learned the word apologize, haven't heard the word regret,
haven't heard I misspoke? And it was heated, and I
made a mistake. Actually any of those words, sir.
I actually it wasn't heated.
And I'm not apologizing for point.
Not your cood or goodn't. So you're jolly well find
and you went to American public and the people up
here to vote that may or may not vote for
you to know that you supported the felonious, violent attack
on me from behind.
I did not say I supported it.
I said I understood it.
Mullen must pass a majority vote from the committee before
proceeding to a floor vote in the Senate. Paul said
he opposes Mullen's nomination.
Yeah.
Let's turn to the markets, now, Karen, where a futures
lower following against. They set off on Wall Street, all
three indexes dropping at least one point four percent in
yesterday's session. Shares a Micron technology They're down more than
four percent. The largest US maker of computer memory Chips,
beat earnings estimates, but warned that it'll need to spend
heavily on production to beat rgeoning demand in Europe.
John HSBC is considering a deep job cuts over the
coming years as part of a bet on AI. Bloomberg
has learned CEO georgel Heery is in talks about cutting
ten percent of the bank's workforce. James Wilcock has the
story from London.
L Hendrie is on a mission to streamline Europe's largest bank.
He's already cut thousands of jobs. Now Bloomberg understands ahsbc's
CEO is in talks to shrink its back office headcount
by as much as twenty thousand people. The bank declined
to comment on the story, but it's one of the
first signs about how AI could radically reshape Wall Street.
Bloomberg Intelligence forecast as many as two hundred thousand positions
in global finance could cease to exist in the next
three to five years as banks looked to robots instead.
In London, James Wilcock Bloomberg Radio.
Thanks to him and programming note, markets make clothes on Friday,
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And for that we're joined by Bloomberg's Michael Barr.
Thank you very much, John. The Director of National Intelligence,
Telsey Gabert dodge questions about the severity of the threat
posed by Iran In senate testimony, Gabert declined to say
whether she thought Iron represented an imminent nuclear threat to
the US, as the White House has claimed. She was
questioned by Georgia Democratic Senator John Asoff.
Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that, as
the White House claimed on March first, there was a
quote imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime?
Guess or not?
Once again, Senator, the intelligence community has provided the inputs
that make up this annual threat assessment.
Do you want to answer the question?
Need D and I? Chief Gabbart admitted a conclusion from
her written testimony that Iron's uranium enrichment program had been
obliterated in strikes last year. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy says
Democrats are willing to jeopardize travel to further their agenda.
The DHS shutdown has caused TSA employees to miss pajas.
According to TSA data, nearly ten percent of workers called
in sick Wednesday. It's now been over a month since
the start of the partial government shutdown. Jill Danovich is
a TSA agent and union representative. While she is still
showing up to work, she described what would makers stop
showing up.
What would make us stop is that we are just
financially unable to do so. We're already getting to that point. Actually,
our callouts have been going up, up, up since last
week when we actually missed that first full paycheck. We
don't have the fuel to continue coming to work at
this point.
TSA agent Jill Dianovich fears the Senate going on recess
next week. Democratic lawmakers have stormed out of a closed
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The lawmakers say they will push to force Attorney General
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The NCAA tournament field is sixty four tipn off this afternoon,
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Bloomberg Business app. This is Bloomberg Daybreak and Gemri.
I'm Karen Moscow, alongside John Tucker and President Shrump, is
pressing for a d escalation of attacks on Middle East
energy assets after Iranian and Israeli strikes on major gas
hubs jolted global markets. Posting on social media, the President
also pledged the US would massively blow up the entirety
of the world's largest gas field if a run a
tax cutter again. We want to get the latest on
the war now with owner Aunt, Bloomberry's managing editor for
a Middle East and North Africa. Owner, thanks so much
for being with us this morning. We want to talk
about these latest strikes, including one of the world's largest
LNG plant. How significant is this?
This is quite significant, As you said, the Roslafan complex
is home to the world's largest ellen plant. Cutar itself
is one of the top three allergy exporters in the world. Obviously,
it had already stopped exporting the fuel due to the
near closure of the Street of Hormus since the war began,
and during the first week of the war. In fact,
the first few days of the war, it had already
stopped producing the field because of some strikes. But yesterday
marks an escalation.
Well.
Attacks overnight into Thursday marked and escalation in Iran's war tactics.
It said that it would retaliate against all Golf nations
hosting Arab hosting Arab and American energy companies after its
own priced South Pars gas field did come under attack
by Israel on Wednesday, and ras La Van Or Qatar's
allergy plant was not the only one that was targeted
by Iran overnight into Thursday. We have seen similar attacks
on two refineries in Kuwait, a gas an oil field
in the UAE and refined and a couple of refineries,
as well as other important energy assets in Saudi Arabia.
So Iran's attacks have been brought and they've targeted many
Arab countries in the Persian Gulf overnight.
All right, Well, you also mentioned Israel's attack on South
Pars and Trump is making it clear that the US
was not involved in that attack. Is it important that
he tried to distance himself from that.
Yes, it says a lot about about what may be
going on behind the scenes, because the first public message
in coming out of Israel was that the US was
indeed informed and had had the approval for yesterday's attack
on South Parts. But following Iran's outsized reaction and pledge
to attack all these Arab countries, and in fact, the
fact that it adhere to that pledge and did end
up attacking Roslavan, where its attacks results in extensive damages,
we've seen MISSUS Trump coming out almost immediately and saying
that that attack by Israel was not done with the
US's knowledge, nor was that of Qatar. It would not
happen again, and it also asked Iran to act with
restrain and threatened to attack the South Parts with greater
force if Iran continues its strikes on Qatar's allege infrastructure
in particular.
And with only about thirty seconds, seems like we're even
further away from a possible end, doesn't it.
No, it doesn't feel like there's going to be any
relief from this war anytime soon. We are seeing a
continuation of attacks in both directions, both from Iran and
the US Israeli Alliance. On the twentieth day of the.
War, this is Bloomberg Daybreak, your morning podcast on the
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