By Michael Kern of OilPrice.com,

Chinese electric vehicle exports soared by 140% to a record high in March as the fuel price shock drove consumers back to EVs.

BYD electric vehicles bound for export in China.Source: AFP/Getty Images

China exported as many as 349,000 electric vehicles last month, a record high number of any month ever, according to data from the China Passenger Car Association cited by Bloomberg.

Drivers in Asia Pacific, Europe, and the United States started searching for EVs and hybrid options amid soaring fuel prices, following the war in the Middle East. The conflict has trapped more than 10 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude supply at the Strait of Hormuz and hiked international oil prices to $100 per barrel and above, up from $70 before the conflict began.

As a result of the rapidly rising fuel prices, consumers are increasingly exploring EV options.

Showrooms across Asia, where the fuel crisis was first felt, are bustling with interest from consumers willing to buy EVs.

In Australia, the wait times for EVs have soared to by several months, the Australian Financial Review reports.

BYD, China’s biggest EV manufacturer and top exporter, has said that the average wait time for its top-selling Sealion 7 and Atto 2 models has blown out to between two and three months, up from two to three weeks.

Autotrader, the UK’s largest automotive marketplace, reported a surge in EV interest since the first bombing on Iran on February 28.

“Our data shows a sharp rise in both new and used EV leads since the war began at the end of February, with used EV enquiries hitting record levels on the Autotrader marketplace,” Ian Plummer, Chief Customer Officer at Autotrader, said at the end of March.

“When people feel that traditional fuel is vulnerable to global events, the appeal of electric becomes far stronger so the conflict is acting as a significant catalyst for EV interest across the UK market.”

Interest in EVs in the United States is also rising, as gasoline prices topped $4 per gallon nationwide. Yet, Morgan Stanley expects that an actual increased demand for EVs and hybrids in the U.S. could take place after about six consecutive months of high gasoline prices.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has openly teased the possibility of running for president again in 2028 – telling an audience at the National Action Network’s annual convention in New York City alongside Rev. Al Sharpton: “Listen, I might, I might. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about it.”

The crowd erupted into chants of “Run again!” as Harris spoke. “I served for four years being a heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States,” she told the audience. “I spent countless hours in my West Wing office, footsteps away from the Oval Office. I spent countless hours in the Oval Office, in the Situation Room. I know what the job is. And I know what it requires.” She added that recent travels across the country, especially in the South, had reinforced her view that “the status quo is not working, and hasn’t been working for a lot of people for a long time.”

This isn’t her first hint…

October 2025 (BBC Interview): In her first UK interview after the election, Harris gave her strongest early signal yet. Asked if she could envision herself as president one day—and whether America would soon elect a female president—she replied “possibly.” She declared, “I am not done. I have lived my entire career as a life of service and it’s in my bones.”
October 2025 (Kara Swisher Interview): On stage with journalist Kara Swisher, Harris shrugged off a question about 2028 with “Maybe. Maybe not,” drawing cheers from the crowd.
February 2026 (Sharon McMahon Interview): While promoting her memoir 107 Days—which chronicles the intense final stretch of her 2024 campaign—Harris told author Sharon McMahon she “hasn’t decided” on another run but admitted, “I might,” when pressed on whether she was still thinking about it. McMahon noted the book left the impression that Harris “wants” to run again.

Odds of another run currently sit at 11%… watch this one: 

Will Kamala Harris announce a 2028 run for President by June 30?
Yes 11% · No 89%
View full market & trade on Polymarket

Harris’s 2024 bid as the Democratic nominee came after President Joe Biden stepped aside. She lost decisively to Trump but has remained an active voice in Democratic politics, criticizing the current administration’s foreign policy—particularly the war with Iran, which she has called a “choice” that “keeps me up at night.”

She is already scheduled to appear at Democratic events in multiple Southern states this month, keeping her profile high as the party looks ahead. While she leads many early 2028 primary polls among Democrats, the field is expected to be crowded, and some party insiders have expressed private concerns about a repeat candidacy.

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released its state-level real gross domestic product data on Thursday, revealing a sharply uneven economic landscape in the fourth quarter of 2025, with boom times in North Dakota contrasting with a sharp slowdown spreading across the Mid-Atlantic, especially in Washington, D.C.

“From a regional perspective, real GDP increased in 35 states in the fourth quarter of 2025, with the percent change at an annual rate ranging from 3.8 percent in North Dakota to –8.3 percent in the District of Columbia and remaining unchanged in Indiana and Maine,” BEA wrote in the report.

The fourth quarter coincided with a 43-day government shutdown from Oct. 1 through Nov. 12, a disruption that likely had an outsized effect on the Washington, D.C. economy given the metro area’s heavy reliance on federal workers, procurement, contracting activity, and the broader consumer spending tied to government. 

But let’s not forget that the D.C. economy is already dealing with a spending slowdown linked to the Trump administration’s move to clean up waste, fraud, and abuse. To this day, DOGE units are still operating in agencies and trimming the DEI fat.

Yesim Sayin, executive director of the think tank D.C. Policy Center, was quoted by the Washington Post late in 2025 as warning about recession risks in the D.C. economy.

“Death by a thousand cuts,” Sayin told WaPo. She said the significance of 2025 lies less in any single data point and more in the earthquake it has delivered to the very bedrock of the city’s long-term outlook.

“This isn’t just a blip,” Sayin said. “What this year has done is change the trajectory of the District’s economy.”

According to the Cato Institute, the 2025 federal workforce reduction was the largest peacetime reduction ever. That drop was 9% of the total workforce. 

D.C. Policy Center’s latest report warns that D.C. has entered a slower-growth era and can no longer rely on population gains, employment growth, and rising revenues to offset inefficiencies and soaring costs.

The think tank warned:

The city’s current fiscal framework was built during a period of steady growth, when rising population, expanding employment, and increasing property values supported reliable revenue gains. That environment has weakened but spending commitments have not adjusted at the same pace. Recent budgets reflect this tension clearly. In this fiscal year (FY 2026), roughly 10 percent of approved general fund spending—about $1.4 billion—is being financed with past savings rather than with recurring revenues. At the same time, the adopted financial plan assumes a reduction of $839 million in FY 2027 spending, a cut of more than six percent. [4] The District has not faced adjustments of this scale since the Great Recession.

This is a system under strain. Growth has not returned, as hoped, to ease these pressures, and as revenues flatten in real terms, the city faces increasingly constrained choices.

For years, the Mid-Atlantic economy rode a wave of federal spending that poured into local economies from Northern Virginia to Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland, and into Delaware, helping sustain an unbalanced economy heavily tilted toward government.

Now, as growth slows and residents and businesses leave, the region’s political elites – ruled by Democratic Party queens and kings in their ‘DEI Kingdoms’ – are facing hard realities: higher taxes will only trigger a greater exodus and spark even more backlash from both sides of the political aisle. 

The road to political change in the Mid-Atlantic was accelerated by the Trump administration’s DOGE, which sought to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse across many agencies, including USAID.

We’ll leave you with a message from Dean Woodley Ball, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, a Policy Fellow at Fathom, and Visiting Fellow at Heritage Foundation…

My plan is to leave DC for Virginia before the next mayor is sworn in, or shortly after at the very least.

DC is incredibly vulnerable. It has the following major defects:

1. An incompetent and corrupt government that does not provide basic services effectively

2. A… https://t.co/n3gXenwrZX

— Dean W. Ball (@deanwball) April 10, 2026

“My plan is to leave DC for Virginia before the next mayor is sworn in, or shortly after at the very least.” 

Authored by Brayden Lindrea via CoinTelegraph.com,

The US Central Intelligence Agency said it will embed “AI co-workers” directly into its analytics platforms to assist analysts with detecting spies and anticipating hostile moves by foreign adversaries.

“Within the next couple of years, we will have AI co-workers built into all of the agency’s analytic platforms — a kind of classified version of generative AI that will help our analysts with basic tasks,” CIA Deputy Director Michael Ellis reportedly said on Thursday during an event hosted by the Special Competitive Studies Project in Washington, DC.

According to Politico, Ellis said the AI co-workers would assist intelligence officers with drafting key judgments, testing analytical conclusions and identifying trends in intelligence that the agency gathers from abroad.

However, he said humans would continue to make the “key decisions.”

Michael Ellis (right) speaking with Anthony Pompliano (left) about Bitcoin and AI’s role in US national security in May: Source: Anthony Pompliano

The CIA’s AI plans come amid a feud between the US Department of Defense and AI firm Anthropic. Despite having a $200 million contract with the Department of Defense, Anthropic prevented the use of its flagship AI product, Claude, for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons.

US President Donald Trump ordered all federal agencies to immediately cease using Anthropic’s technology in March, while the Department of Defense declared Anthropic a supply chain risk.

The parties remain locked in a legal dispute over the designation, with a US appeals court on Wednesday denying Anthropic’s emergency request to temporarily pause the label.

While Ellis didn’t point out Anthropic, he said the CIA “cannot allow the whims of a single company” to constrain its capabilities.

The CIA has already adopted AI for other intelligence tasks, having tested about 300 AI projects last year to “bring new capabilities to our mission,” such as processing large data sets and language translation, Ellis said.

Ellis also noted that the CIA recently created its first intelligence report with AI while predicting that AI’s role in the agency’s work would continue to grow.

A major motivation for the CIA is to stay ahead of China, Ellis said, noting that the once-large gap between the US and China has narrowed significantly.

“Five to ten years ago, China was nowhere near America, in terms of technological innovation,” Ellis said. “That’s just not true today.”

Ellis likes the transparency of Bitcoin, crypto

In May, Ellis said Bitcoin and crypto were matters of national security, adding that the agency reviews blockchain data to support its counterintelligence operations.

“It’s another area of technological competition where we need to make sure the United States is well-positioned against China and other adversaries.”

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

Justice Brett Kavanaugh is accustomed to unrelenting personal attacks from the left that began with his nomination to the Court. This week, however, the ad hominem insults came not from cable programs but a colleague. 

Justice Sonia Sotomayor used an appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law to level a personal dig at Kavanaugh as an out-of-touch elitist.

I have long criticized the growing number of public statements by justices on controversial subjects and cases, including Justice Sotomayor. However, this appearance represented a new low in lashing out at a colleague as effectively blinded by his own privilege.

In her comments, Sotomayor raised Kavanaugh’s concurrence in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo:

“I had a colleague in that case who wrote, you know, these are only temporary stops. This is from a man whose parents were professionals. And probably doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour… Those hours that they took you away, nobody’s paying that person. And that makes a difference between a meal for him and his kids that night and maybe just cold supper…”

She then referred to her own background as giving her experience and knowledge that is apparently missing in colleagues such as Kavanaugh:

“Life experiences teach you to think more broadly and to see things others may not. And when I have a moment where I can express that on behalf of people who have no other voice, then I’m being given a very rare privilege.”

It was reminiscent of Sotomayor’s reference to being a “wise Latina” on the bench. While on the Second Circuit, then-judge Sotomayor explained that her life experiences offered a “difference” not shared by other colleagues. In a 2001 lecture at Berkeley law school titled “A Latina Judge’s Voice,” she heralded the difference that “our gender and national origins may and will make … in our judging.”

In her latest comments, she is suggesting that her interaction with hourly wage earners allows her to see things that Kavanaugh does not in these cases. The claim that she “sees things that others may not” suggests that the privileged, insulated existence of Kavanaugh blinds him to the true merits of cases before him.

Notably, Justice Sotomayor also told the students and faculty that she has a friendship with most, but apparently not all, of her colleagues:

“I dare say that with virtually all of them, I certainly have a civil relationship. And with many of them, I think I dare say that I have a friendship,”

After this speech, I would not expect a social media friend invite from Kavanaugh.

It is true that Kavanaugh went to elite schools, but so did Sotomayor, who graduated from Princeton and Yale.

Both of Kavanaugh’s parents were indeed lawyers, but it is odd that Sotomayor would miss the compelling story of his mother, Martha. She was a history professor who went to law school while raising a family and eventually became one of the minority of women on the state bench. That would also seem to be “gender origins” that Sotomayor previously cited as key in her view of impactful judging.

However, what was most striking was Sotomayor’s backhanded suggestion that Kavanaugh “doesn’t really know any person who works by the hour.” The suggestion is that he has avoided — and continues to avoid — interactions with people who get paid on an hourly basis — while she is more inclusive in her circle of friends. It is obviously false, but more importantly, petty and unfair.

The attack suggests that, while she is a “wise Latina,” Kavanaugh is a privileged prig on the Court. The fact is that many blue-collar (if not most) workers identify more with aspects of Kavanaugh’s jurisprudence. At a minimum, over half of the country is more likely to embrace his approach than that of Justice Sotomayor, who has been criticized for her comments in oral argument on issues ranging from abortion to puberty blockers to COVID restrictions.

Justice Kavanaugh has distinguished himself in public service, including work with the homeless.

Justice Sotomayor has repeatedly raised eyebrows with her comments off the bench, including seemingly calling on lawyers and students to join in a political campaign to change abortion laws.

In her favor, Justice Sotomayor has also defended colleagues like Justice Clarence Thomas, explained the reasonable disagreements among the justices, and opposed rationales on the left for packing the court. She is not someone who I view as gratuitously rude or cruel. I believe that she values collegiality and the Court as an institution. However, this was another injudicious moment during public events.

There is a wide chasm between the jurisprudence of these two justices. However, that difference is due to fundamental and principled differences in how courts should approach constitutional and statutory interpretation.

Yet, these comments were a disturbing departure from the tradition of collegiality and civility on the court. It was unfair and unwarranted. Hopefully, Justice Sotomayor will take an upcoming occasion during her speaking tour to withdraw the comment.

That would be the “wise” thing to do.

Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”

The latest snapshot of the global PC market, from International Data Corporation’s first-quarter shipment tracker, shows units rising 2.5% year over year to 65.6 million.

“Despite deteriorating macroeconomic conditions and memory shortage issues, the PC market recorded another quarter of positive growth,” IDC wrote in the report published on Thursday morning.

IDC said last quarter’s growth was “mostly fueled by the anticipation of rising component prices, Windows 10 migration, and new product introductions.”

Jean Philippe Bouchard, research vice president at IDC, noted, “The strength of every PC vendor’s supply chain and ability to access core components, such as memory, will be tested,” adding, “IDC believes that demand will be met by PC vendors who have best secured access to memory and have a device portfolio capable of addressing all price tiers of the market.”

Here are the key 1Q26 numbers on global PC shipments:

1Q26 Regional Shipments:

IDC estimates industry PC shipments of 65.6 mn grew +2.5% year over year. Global growth was driven by EMEA (+7.4% year over year) and Asia/Pacific (+4.3% year over year), while Americas was down (-3.3% year over year v. +4% in C4Q25). IDC PC unit shipments also include workstations.

1Q26 Vendor Market Share:

IDC estimates that Lenovo, Dell, Apple, and ASUS grew ahead of the market, while HP lagged. Specifically, Lenovo shipments grew 8.6% (25% share), Dell shipments grew +7.7% (16% share), Apple shipments grew +9% (9.5% share), and ASUS shipments grew 17% (7% share), while HP units declined -4.9% (18.5% share).

IDC estimates 1Q26 PC shipments (via Goldman): 

Goldman analyst Katherine Murphy commented on IDC’s report and agreed that much of the PC growth in the first quarter was attributed to “a pull-forward ahead of anticipated price increases.”

The pull-forward in PC shipments comes as little surprise, given that industry insiders warned consumers in late January to buy devices heavily dependent on memory before the shortage worsened. However, in recent weeks, “Google’s DeepSeek moment” appears to have forced memory stick hoarders to dump supply onto the market, pushing prices lower.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Fox News host Laura Ingraham dismantled Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) on live television for co-sponsoring the DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act, a bipartisan bill critics slam as mass amnesty for illegal aliens. 

The heated exchange, captured in viral clips, highlights growing frustration with RINOs undermining America First priorities a little over an year into President Trump’s second term.

Ingraham pressed Lawler relentlessly over claims that the legislation would bar criminals from eligibility. Lawler stated: “[An illegal alien] can’t have committed a crime [to be eligible for the Dignity Act].” Ingraham shot back: “That’s false! FALSE! FALSE! FALSE!… You can’t come on this show and say to my audience that you can’t have committed a crime to be eligible under the, ‘Dignity Act’ because there are several crimes that are, ‘nonviolent’ that do not qualify for inadmissibility.”

MUST WATCH: Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY): “[An illegal alien] can’t have committed a crime [to be eligible for the Dignity Act].”

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham: “That’s false! FALSE! FALSE! FALSE!… You can’t come on this show and say to my audience that you can’t have committed a crime… pic.twitter.com/f43gsRZjkw

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) April 9, 2026

Ingraham added: “I can’t imagine Democrat immigration officers under a Democrat president in the future, was going to hold the strict we’re not going to let any criminals in.” On gang ties, she noted: “Gang member affiliation is given wide latitude.”

The confrontation escalated further when Ingraham challenged Lawler on specific offenses. “How about multiple DUIs?” she asked. Lawler replied: “That should be included [for deportation].” Ingraham fired back: “It’s not!… They can STAY under this legislation! Unfortunately.”

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham GOES AFTER Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) for co-sponsoring a bill that provides MASS AMNESTY for illegal aliens.

Laura Ingraham: “How about multiple DUIs?”

Mike Lawler: “That should be included [for deportation].”

Laura Ingraham: “It’s not!… They can… pic.twitter.com/27CJqTRFgu

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) April 9, 2026

She also ripped into Lawler’s use of tired clichés about illegal immigrants. “You got to stop using the cliches. This ‘in the shadows’… I don’t know what shadows are you looking at? But they’re not in the shadows. They’re working in restaurants… others are engaged in widespread fraud in California.”

Fox News’ Laura Ingraham SLAPS around RINO Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY) for co-sponsoring a bill that would provide MASS AMNESTY for illegal aliens.

Laura Ingraham “You got to stop using the cliches. This ‘in the shadows’… I don’t know what shadows are you looking at? But they’re… pic.twitter.com/CUqUFLFs3E

— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) April 9, 2026

Ingraham emphasized: “They’re NOT already given amnesty. Why do you come on television and say that? The president has been trying to REMOVE people from this country.” 

She concluded pointedly: “It’s in the read legislation. Have you read the legislation?”

The DIGNIDAD Act (H.R. 4393), introduced last year by Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) and Veronica Escobar (D-TX) with Lawler as a co-sponsor, offers a pathway to legal status for certain long-term illegal aliens while claiming to include border security and E-Verify mandates. 

Lawler has defended it as a “bipartisan” fix, but the Ingraham segment exposed what many see as dangerous loopholes that reward lawbreakers at the expense of American citizens.

This RINO push for amnesty comes despite crystal-clear public sentiment. As we reported previously, multiple polls confirm a majority of Americans back mass deportations of all illegals:

It also directly undercuts the Biden-era failure. The former president recently made the insane claim that he had reduced illegal immigration—despite record crossings that strained communities nationwide:

Americans voted decisively for enforcement, not more pathways that erode sovereignty. Yet here we have Republicans like Lawler doing the left’s bidding, co-sponsoring legislation that critics rightly label as amnesty in disguise. 

Why import chaos when the mandate is clear: secure the border, remove those here illegally, and put Americans first?

The backlash on X has been swift and brutal, with users labeling Lawler a “garbage Republican” for enabling Democrats without them even needing to lift a finger. 

This episode serves as a stark reminder: true immigration reform means enforcement first—no rewards, no loopholes, no excuses.

Your support is crucial in helping us defeat mass censorship. Please consider donating via Locals or check out our unique merch. Follow us on X @ModernityNews.

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains largely limited, with transits over the past 24 hours consisting almost exclusively of ships “friendly” to Iran, including Chinese and Russian vessels. Meanwhile, those expecting the ceasefire to unblock Hormuz have actually seen the opposite: traffic through the strait, which ticked up at the weekend, has since slowed further. 

Several fully-laden supertankers have moved toward the waterway in the past two days, but haven’t made the crossing out of the Persian Gulf, despite a US-Iran ceasefire taking effect this week.

Unless anything changes, this weekend’s ceasefire negotiations will be very short: the US has said the truce is conditional on Iran unblocking Hormuz. Yet since Thursday morning, just nine ships out of the roughly 800 vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf, have been observed passing through the strait, with five heading out of the gulf and four going in the opposite direction.

Among the most important was the Suezmax oil tanker Tour 2, hauling about 1 million barrels of Iranian crude out of the waterway. The Russian flagged supertanker Arhimeda moved in the opposite direction toward Iran’s export terminal at Kharg Island.

In a sign of some modest optimism, several oil tankers inside the Persian Gulf are anchoring near the approach to the strait, likely in order to be among the first to get underway as soon as the waterway opens up. Yet even as the ceasefire has pushed shipowners to begin considering options, most say conditions are still too unclear to attempt an exit.

Two Japanese oil tankers – itching with anticipation to get the hell out – left the waters off Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura on Thursday to move closer to the strait. The Mayasan and Yakumosan, both very-large carriers each hauling around 2 million barrels of crude, began sailing east late Thursday from waters off Ras Tanura in Saudi Arabia, where they have been since mid-March. The Sea Condor, a Greek-flagged products tanker that loaded in Kuwait, was also moving east in the direction of Hormuz.

Mayasan sailed into the gulf a few days before war broke out on Feb. 28, ship-tracking data show. It picked up crude from the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia in late February. It is indicating Tomakomai, a port in northern Japan, as its destination. Yakumosan entered the gulf in late February, and picked up a cargo of Qatari crude from a floating storage vessel in early March. It then soon took another load from Saudi Arabia’s Juaymah, before idling for a few weeks off Ras Tanura. It is signaling a mustering point off Das Island in the United Arab Emirates as its destination.

The Japanese ships sailing east on Friday have links to Mitsui OSK Lines Ltd., a major Japanese shipowner and key energy player. While the company extracted at least one vessel from the gulf before this week’s truce, President Jotaro Tamura said on Thursday the group would now need to scrutinize details and the implementation of the ceasefire before allowing its tankers to test the Strait of Hormuz. 

Mitsui owns Mayasan, while Yakumosan’s owner Phoenix Ocean Corp. shares MOL’s address. MOL said it could not comment on “the navigation status or operational measures of individual vessels,” adding its priority was the safety of seafarers, cargo, and vessels. 

The Japanese tankers follow a similar move by three fully-laden Chinese ships. On Thursday, the three Chinese VLCCs clustered at a spot approaching Iran’s Qeshm, the island that now serves as a gateway for Hormuz transits. Two of the ships are linked to China’s Cosco Shipping Corp., a giant and prudent state-owned player.

The Cospearl Lake, a very-large crude carrier linked to China’s state-owned Cosco Shipping Corp., and He Rong Hai, owned by a smaller entity, appeared to be traveling east early on Thursday morning at near-top speeds, according to ship-tracking data, before coming to a virtual halt. Another Cosco-linked VLCC, the Yuan Hua Hu, began its eastward journey a few hours later. All three are signaling Chinese ownership on their tracking systems, a move typically done for safety during Iran-approved transits (and in this case they aren’t lying).

The Chinese ships are already notable for their cargoes. Two are carrying Iraqi crude, and the other Saudi. While Iran has referred to “brotherly” Iraq, most other transits have been granted to friendly nations. Iraq has told traders and refiners that vessels carrying the country’s oil are now able to transit the Strait of Hormuz thanks to an Iranian exemption.

Cospearl Lake’s and Yuan Hua Hu’s passages would also mark the first such attempt by a Cosco oil tanker in the six-week war. The company, like other large shipping firms, tends to be conservative, and its crude carriers have been trapped since US and Israeli strikes on Iran began, prompting Iran to all but close Hormuz in retaliation

Sea Condor, the Greek-flagged ship, also moved into the gulf at around the same time and picked up Kuwaiti fuels in early March. Its owner is Turandot Marine Co. which shares the same contact details as its manager, Pantheon Tankers Management, in Athens. 

The tankers are part of a growing armada amassing at the entrance to the strait, off the United Arab Emirates. A Saudi Arabian-flagged VLCC, the Jaham, has moved east toward a nearby holding area off Dubai. They join other ships including two Indian-flagged, fully-laden supertankers that have been in the area since late March – the Desh Vibhor, which is off Ras Al Khaimah, and the Desh Vaibhav, which is near Dubai.

Shipowners are not only concerned about the safety of crew and cargo, but also about the need to manage Iranian demands to secure safe passage, including payments which could expose companies to sanctions risks. Trump, who announced a complete opening of Hormuz along with the ceasefire earlier this week, said on Thursday he was optimistic, only to then chastise Iran for doing a “very poor” job of allowing oil through.

Meanwhile, all transits observed in the past day passed through a narrow northern corridor of the Strait between the Iranian islands of Larak and Qeshm, which is the only passage permitted by Iran’s military. 

Observed Transits

According to Bloomberg, since Thursday morning, two Iran-linked oil tankers, two bulkers and a single container ship have been observed leaving the Persian Gulf. The Greek oil tanker Serengeti, which appeared on automated tracking systems off Sri Lanka on Thursday, is estimated to have made the outbound crossing on April 1.

From the other side, two tankers sanctioned by the US for their involvement in the Iranian oil trade – one of which was the Arhimeda – were observed entering the Gulf on Thursday. A small bulk carrier also made the inbound transit. On Friday morning, the only vessel seen heading into the Persian Gulf was a Chinese-linked bulk carrier.

By Elwin de Groot, head of macro strategy 

As another volatile week comes to an end, investors and market participants appear to be clinging to the hope that the two‑week ceasefire between the United States and Iran, which began on Wednesday, will not unravel entirely – at least until a direct, face‑to‑face exchange and clarification of key demands can take place during the planned talks in Islamabad this weekend. Near‑dated Brent crude edged up by $2 to $97, equity markets posted modest declines in Europe, whilst US stocks rose. European bond yields rose by 3–5 basis points, as UST yields dropped a few. This suggests that the powerful risk‑on move seen on Wednesday has been dented but not broken. Experts continue to stress the fragility of the ceasefire, but markets are showing slightly greater confidence than the underlying geopolitical reality might warrant.

Compared with the first day of the ceasefire – which saw Israel launch its largest‑ever strike on Hezbollah, the UAE carry out a large‑scale operation against Iran’s oil and petrochemical assets in the Gulf, and Iran respond with ballistic missile and drone attacks – yesterday’s developments were notably more contained. There were no confirmed direct US‑Iran strikes. That said, Hezbollah did fire rockets into northern Israel, and Iran formally accused the United States of violating the ceasefire due to Israel’s continued strikes in Lebanon. Kuwait also accused Iran and its proxies of launching drone attacks.

Crucially, shipping through the Strait of Hormuz remains severely disrupted, with only a handful of Iran‑linked and/or Chinese vessels transiting the waterway. Iran indicated that it would allow no more than 15 ships per day to pass under the ceasefire agreement – hardly meaningful given that an estimated 800-900 vessels are still waiting to exit the strait. More fundamentally, the move underscores Iran’s effective control over the waterway, a message reinforced by the publication of “two safe shipping routes” by Iran’s Ports and Maritime Organization.

As reported earlier this week, shipowners are still grappling with whether – and under what conditions – it is safe to transit the Strait of Hormuz. Insurance is only part of the equation; the security of crews is equally critical. This raises the risk that even once ships can leave the strait to deliver cargoes to Asia and Europe, owners may remain reluctant to re‑enter the area to load new shipments. This reinforces our view that even if the war were to end – a point that remains far from certain – normalisation would not be immediate. A temporary ceasefire, clearly, is not a sufficient condition for a return to business as usual.

On that note, German Chancellor Merz has told President Trump that Germany would back a mission to secure the Strait, but that such an operation would ideally be conducted under a mandate from the UN Security Council. We’ll have to see if the US administration sees any merit in this, as it would imply Russia and China will get a clear say in the matter as well.

Following his meeting with NATO Chef Rutte – which only further exposed the rift in the alliance – Trump has demanded that countries provide concrete, operational support to US military actions – specifically through access to bases, airspace, logistics, and naval participation – rather than limiting themselves to political backing or neutrality. Trump did not issue a formal ultimatum in the meeting, but officials and media reports suggest the administration is considering concrete penalties for uncooperative allies, including redeploying or withdrawing US troops from certain NATO countries, or – more extreme – reassessing US commitments to the alliance as a whole.