Oil prices jump as Trump threatens new strikes on Iran
Brent nears $110 with Hormuz closure risk repriced, markets treat insurance and credit as the real chokepoint
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Brent crude jumped toward $110 a barrel at the open on Friday after Donald Trump renewed threats against Iran and warned of further strikes if Tehran moves to close the Strait of Hormuz, according to Business Insider.
The move comes as the US–Israel war with Iran enters its sixth week and shipping and insurance markets have started treating Hormuz less as a geographic chokepoint than a pricing event: a single threat can raise war-risk premiums, tighten credit for cargoes and push refiners to pay up for prompt delivery.
Energy traders have been living off headline risk since the first strikes in late February, but the latest price spike underlines a more structural problem: the market cannot easily substitute the barrels that flow through the Gulf, even when the physical oil is still moving. When insurers and banks price a route as potentially uninsurable, the constraint is financial as much as logistical, and spot prices do the rationing.
That dynamic is also why incremental production pledges from OPEC+ struggle to calm markets. A small increase looks symbolic when the feared disruption is not a slow supply shortfall but a sudden interruption that would strand tankers, delay cargoes and force buyers into a scramble for non-Gulf grades.
The shock is already spilling into a broader commodity basket. Business Insider notes that the conflict has affected the availability and price of oil, gas and food, with knock-on effects for transport costs and inflation expectations. For Europe, which has spent the past two years trying to rebuild energy security around alternative crude and LNG flows, a Gulf insurance shock lands as a surcharge on everything from jet fuel to industrial feedstocks.
The immediate driver remains political signalling. Trump’s public threats—now tied explicitly to Iranian moves around Hormuz—turn military posture into a market input, rewarding anyone positioned for volatility and penalising importers who have to keep buying regardless.
On Friday morning the price action was simple: Brent climbed toward $110 and US WTI rose toward $115, even though no new physical disruption had yet been confirmed.