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Almost 40 years ago, a seemingly meaningless interview eerily foreshadowed what is happening in the Middle East right now. What I am about to share with you is absolutely amazing, because it shows that the threat that Iran poses was very much on Donald Trump’s mind even when he was a young man. Now he is in the White House, and we are witnessing things that we have never seen before. The U.S. and Israel are relentlessly destroying thousands of important targets all over Iran, and in return the Iranians continue to launch missiles and drones at targets all over the region. Shockingly, during an interview with Barbara Walters in 1987, Trump warned that there would be “a war” and that it would “start in the Middle East”…

‘You’re going to have a war, and it’s going to start in the Middle East,’ Trump predicted to Walters during the interview.

When he made that statement, Trump probably never imagined that he would be the president of the United States when that war finally began.

Sometimes we say things that we do not fully understand at the time.

That has happened to me many times, and I am sure that it has happened to many of you as well.

During that same interview, Trump told Barbara Walters that during a future conflict with Iran the U.S. should “go in and grab one of their big oil installations and I mean grab it and keep it and get back your losses”…

Footage has emerged of President Donald Trump warning of the threat posed by Iran’s Supreme Leader and America’s goals in a war with the nation, 39 years ago.

The video captured an interview with late journalist and television personality Barbara Walters in December 1987, where Trump appeared to predict the current crisis in the Middle East and laid out his war plans if he were president.

At age 41, Trump said: ‘The next time Iran attacks this country, go in and grab one of their big oil installations and I mean grab it and keep it and get back your losses because this country has lost plenty because of Iran.’

The most important oil installation in Iran is Kharg Island, and there has been all sorts of speculation that U.S. forces may soon seize it.

But before that could happen, the U.S. Air Force needed to clear the way.

At the end of last week, there was a massive bombing campaign by U.S. aircraft that resulted in the destruction of all Iranian military targets on Kharg Island…

On Friday, Trump ordered the bombing of Iran’s Kharg Island, the central organ of the country’s oil industry, storing and loading the majority of its crude exports.

The island in the northern Persian Gulf, about 20 miles off the coast of Iran, is Tehran’s most important economic asset and is the launch point of 90 per cent of its oil exports.

The US President said he refrained from hitting the export hub’s oil infrastructure, however, and that the bombardment was limited to military targets only.

It has been widely reported that thousands of U.S. Marines are being deployed to the Middle East.

If the U.S. was going to conduct an amphibious landing on Kharg Island, that is who you would send in.

So I don’t think that this is a coincidence.

For the moment, the Iranians still control Kharg Island, and from that facility they are sending vast amounts of oil through the Strait of Hormuz to China…

Data from the commodity intelligence firm Kpler, seen by Iran International, shows Iranian crude exports averaging more than 1.5 million barrels a day (bpd) so far this month through the strait.

Discharges at Chinese ports have also risen, increasing from about 1.17 million bpd in February to more than 1.25 million so far in March. Figures from the International Energy Agency and maritime intelligence provider Lloyd’s List similarly point to a surge in Iran’s shipments.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is claiming that the reason why the U.S. is allowing this to happen is because “the rest of the world” needs Iranian oil…

The United States is allowing Iranian oil tankers to transit the Strait of Hormuz, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday.

“The Iranian ships have been getting out already, and we’ve let that happen to supply the rest of the world,” Bessent told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan in a “Squawk Box” interview in Paris. The Treasury secretary is in France for trade talks with China.

You could actually replace “the rest of the world” in that quote with “China”.

Almost all of the oil that Iran exports ends up in China, and the Trump administration realizes this.

If we cut off the flow of Iranian oil to China, the Chinese are going to be very, very angry with us.

But if we invade Kharg Island, that is precisely what is going to happen.

So President Trump is facing some really big decisions.

During his interview with Barbara Walters in 1987, Trump also correctly predicted that the Russians would not send in troops to help defend Iran…

Trump also dismissed the possibility that Russia, formerly the Soviet Union, would send in troops to defend their allies in Iran, adding that he was more concerned about Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, calling him ‘something like nobody’s ever seen.’

The real estate mogul’s prophetic comments came four decades before the US and Israel would launch a devastating military campaign that has already killed Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Russians have their hands full in Ukraine, and so they won’t be intervening in the war in the Middle East.

But they are certainly not happy with us at all.

In fact, much of the world is quite upset that this war has essentially paralyzed commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.

Despite all of the bombing that the U.S. and Israel have done, the Iranians continue to maintain control over that waterway…

Tehran retains anti-ship missiles which continue to inflict severe damage, having hit 20 container ships in total since the outbreak of war on February 28.

The regime utilises truck-mounted launchers to fire them, which are mobile and can be moved around quickly for hit-and-run attacks, presenting US forces with a difficult game of whack-a-mole.

It also has a large supply of cheap Shahed drones in its arsenal, costing as little as $35,000 each.

So far, the Iranians have attacked about 20 commercial vessels.

Nobody wants to be the next victim, and so very few vessels that have not been specifically authorized by the Iranians are attempting to travel through the Strait for Hormuz.

President Trump is trying to get a coalition of nations to agree to escort commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz, but his efforts have not been very successful…

US President Donald Trump is trying to garner international support for securing the Strait of Hormuz — the vital waterway where the transport of oil has shuddered to a halt since the United States and Israel began their war with Iran.

He claimed the US has gotten “some positive response” after reaching out to countries for help but that a few “would rather not get involved.” So far, Trump’s allies have remained noncommittal, at least publicly, toward the idea of sending warships.

Of course the U.S. Navy is not currently escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz either because it is just too dangerous.

At some point that will change, but a lot of work needs to be done first.

The Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz needs to be cleared of threats, and that is not going to be easy to do at all.

As for the Iranians, they are telling us that they are not even interested in talking about a ceasefire and they are “prepared to continue the war for as long and as far as necessary”…

Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran is open to holding discussions with countries wanting to safely access the strait. However, he also said Iran is not seeking a ceasefire, “has no hesitation in defending itself and is prepared to continue the war for as long and as far as necessary.”

As I write this article, there are reports that an Iranian drone has just slammed into a five star hotel in Baghdad.

Hopefully we will get some confirmation as to whether these reports are accurate or not.

In the days ahead, I think that we will see a lot more surprises.

If the Iranians choose to escalate matters, the Israelis won’t hold back.

Of course it is always difficult to predict what President Trump will do, and he now finds himself right in the middle of the war that he once warned Barbara Walters about all the way back in 1987.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

A worst-case scenario could be just weeks away. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been essentially paralyzed by the war with Iran, and there is a lot of speculation that the Houthis could soon bring commercial traffic through the Red Sea to a screeching halt. If such a scenario actually materializes, it would be catastrophic for the global economy. The good news is that so far we are not witnessing widespread panic among investors. Most of them still seem to believe that this crisis is just temporary. So even though the price of oil is up over 40 percent since the start of the war, the overall global financial system is still relatively stable at this stage…

The S&P 500 is only down 3% so far this year and 5% off its all-time high, still far from reaching bear market territory or even a correction, suggesting investors aren’t panicking yet about the U.S.-Israel war on Iran. But that could change soon.

To be sure, oil prices have soared more than 40% since the war began two weeks ago and are up nearly 70% year to date. But they remain below the peak seen after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, despite one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies being bottled up by Iran’s de facto blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.

Of course it certainly wouldn’t take much to push the financial markets over the edge.

Dan Alamariu, the chief geopolitical strategist at Alpine Macro, is warning that if this war with Iran persists we could see “peak war panic” in approximately 1 to 3 weeks…

Alamariu acknowledged there’s a growing chance that the war lasts longer than his two-month outlook, and the Strait of Hormuz would likely remain closed for the duration. That means Brent crude prices will stay above $100 a barrel and possibly even top $150. And yet, the market hasn’t reached maximum panic yet.

“Peak war panic is more likely to hit in the next 1 to 3 weeks,” he predicted. “The longer the conflict lasts, the more investors price in economic damage.”

Using oil prices as a gauge for market panics, crude has historically peaked four to eight weeks into similar conflicts, according to Alamariu. The Iran war has now entered its third week.

If the price of oil surpasses $150 a barrel and stays there for an extended period of time, it will cause widespread panic.

I have no doubt about that at all.

What investors would really like to see is an end to the war, but an end to the war is not even on the horizon at this stage…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that “we don’t see any reason why we should talk with Americans” as President Trump has claimed Iran is seeking a deal to end the war between the U.S. and Iran.

“We never asked for a ceasefire, and we have never asked even for negotiation,” Araghchi said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”

As the war entered its third week, Mr. Trump has claimed in recent days that Iran wants to reach a deal. The president said in a post on Truth Social late Friday that Iran “is totally defeated and wants a deal – But not a deal that I would accept!” On Saturday, he told NBC News that “Iran wants to make a deal, and I don’t want to make it because the terms aren’t good enough yet.”

As long as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is paralyzed, there is no way that the war will end.

An IDF spokesperson is telling us the the Israelis are gearing up “for at least three more weeks of operations”…

An Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said the military is preparing for at least three more weeks of operations against Iran and still has ‘thousands of targets’ remaining.

Brigadier General Effie Defrin told CNN that Israeli forces are coordinating closely with the United States and have plans extending beyond the Jewish holiday of Passover.

‘We have thousands of targets ahead,’ Defrin said. ‘We are ready, in coordination with our US allies, with plans through at least the Jewish holiday of Passover, about three weeks from now.’

Let us hope that the war will be over in just a matter of weeks.

But from where I am sitting, I think that is a very optimistic target.

There are so many ways that this war could become so much worse.

For example, if the Houthis were to shut down commercial traffic through the Red Sea by blocking the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, we really would be facing a nightmare scenario that would be unlike anything we have ever seen before…

Alamariu noted that it’s likely Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen will try to close the Red Sea to commercial shipping, heaping additional economic pain on top of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

“A simultaneous two-strait disruption would compound the shock, impacting the additional ~5 mb/d oil flows that normally transit the Bab el-Mandeb and impairing a main Europe-Asia trade route,” he warned. “This could stoke inflation further, especially in Europe.”

If the Strait of Hormuz and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait were blocked simultaneously, hardly anything would be getting out of Saudi Arabia or other Gulf countries.

I have already written much about oil, natural gas and fertilizer, but so many other industries would be deeply affected as well.

For example, the largest aluminum smelter in the entire world has just been forced to reduce its output…

The world’s largest single-site aluminium smelter in the Middle East cut its output by about 20% on Sunday, marking yet another troubling development for the global economy. The disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is no longer just an energy story – it’s now spreading into industrial metals. These second- and third-order effects could soon disrupt global supply chains and tighten aluminium availability, thus pressuring prices higher.

Bloomberg reports that Aluminium Bahrain (Alba) began a controlled, safe shutdown of three reduction lines on Sunday to preserve business continuity amid heavily disrupted maritime shipping routes through the Hormuz chokepoint.

The global economy has become far more integrated than most people realize.

When the price of oil rises, it rises for everyone.

And the pain is already starting to be felt throughout the entire U.S. economy…

Uber and Lyft drivers told us they’re getting more selective about which rides they accept as gas prices rise. That’s because Uber and Lyft control fares, meaning drivers can’t raise prices when their operating costs go up. Some gig drivers are rejecting shorter, lower-paying trips that burn fuel and instead are chasing longer fares that make the math work.

Meanwhile, EV drivers are having a moment. As gas-powered drivers wince at the pump, electric vehicle owners are taking what some have called a “victory lap.” Charging costs haven’t surged in step with oil prices. This is giving EV drivers, including those on rideshare platforms, a meaningful cost advantage.

Higher gas prices are also playing a role in the return-to-office debate. For people who drive to work, pricier fill-ups mean less money in their pockets for everything else.

“When gas prices spike, commuting effectively becomes a pay cut,” one chief operating officer told us.

If this war keeps going for a while, things will get a lot worse.

Just about everything that we purchase on a regular basis is affected by the price of oil, and that includes food.

It takes energy to grow food, and it takes energy to transport food to the stores.

If the price of oil goes up to $150 a barrel and stays there, it is going to become much more expensive to go to the grocery store.

Already, the average price of ground beef has risen almost 20 percent over the past year…

The average price of ground beef, 100% beef, excluding round, chuck, and sirloin, and excluding preformed patties, finally took a breather in February and barely budged, rising by just 0.2%, after spiking month after month almost uninterrupted for a whole year.

At $6.74 per pound, the average price is up by nearly 20% from a year ago and by 73% from January 2020.

By disrupting traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, the Iranians are hitting us where it hurts.

They know that U.S. consumers do not have a very high tolerance for pain.

So they figure that they can sit back and wait for the pain to reach unendurable levels.

But I don’t think that President Trump is going to end this war until he breaks Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz.

That could take a while, and so it appears that this crisis will be with us for quite some time.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

Global financial markets are starting to shake, and it is because of what is happening in the Middle East. At this stage, every day is a rollercoaster ride for investors, and that is not likely to change any time soon. The Iranians have paralyzed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and trying to reopen it by force is going to be exceptionally difficult to do. As you will see below, this is going to have enormous implications for every nation on the entire planet. We are in the early chapters of a major global crisis, and a tremendous amount of pain is ahead.

On Thursday, Mojtaba Khamenei issued a statement in which he boldly declared that the Strait of Hormuz must remain closed in order to “pressure the enemy”…

Iran’s new supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said Thursday that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz maritime passage should be continued as a “tool to pressure the enemy,” in his first public statement since being appointed.

Khamenei also said all U.S. military bases in the Middle East should close immediately and “those bases will be attacked,” in televised comments translated by Reuters.

Oil prices extended gains following the statement, read out by a state TV broadcaster. The shipping of oil through the Strait of Hormuz has effectively stopped since the war began, causing global oil prices to soar. Iran warned on Wednesday that the price per barrel could climb to $200.

Needless to say, the Iranians are fully capable of carrying out Khamenei’s threats.

Several more vessels have been attacked within the past 48 hours, and that includes a U.S.-owned oil tanker that was completely destroyed…

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency also released a dramatic video apparently showing a missile strike on a U.S.-owned tanker in the Persian Gulf. The video shows a massive explosion on a vessel that is then engulfed in flames as people aboard what appears to be an IRGC attack boat celebrate. CBS News Confirmed identified the vessel as the Safesea Vishnu, a crude oil tanker sailing under a Marshall Islands flag, but owned by the New Jersey-based company Safesea Group LLC.

Now that Iran has officially closed the Strait of Hormuz, it will be up to the U.S. military to try to reopen it.

This will not be an easy task.

In fact, some military experts are warning that it could take months to accomplish that goal…

Unblocking the Strait of Hormuz is shaping up as a remarkably complex and time-consuming task.

The fate of the global oil markets—and the global economy—rests on whether ships can traverse the 22-mile-wide waterway from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. More than 10 days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran, there is no clear plan for reopening it. Military experts say the effort is so daunting it could take months to achieve, absent a fast and full cease-fire.

So exactly why will it be so difficult to reopen the Strait of Hormuz?

As one expert has aptly noted, the Iranians are able to block traffic through the Strait in a multitude of different ways…

The problem is that the strait can’t be cleared solely through a bombing campaign, or an attack by destroyers. Iran’s navy has been severely depleted by the U.S., but the country doesn’t need large attack ships to scare commercial vessels away. Its weapons include mines, fast attack boats, missiles and drones. Layered on top of each other, they become exceptionally difficult to remove.

“They’ve created an integrated, vertical stack of threats that can cover the strait from undersea all the way to above the surface,” said Jonathan Schroden, chief research officer at the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded nonprofit that does research for the Navy.

If you take out all of their missiles, they would still have thousands of drones.

If you could somehow locate and eliminate all of the drones, they would still have their fast attack boats.

And even if you could eliminate all of their fast attack boats, they would still have thousands of naval mines.

My point is that this crisis is not going to be resolved easily.

And that is really, really bad news for the global economy.

Right now, approximately half of the available global fleet of liquified natural gas carriers is trapped in the Persian Gulf…

According to the WSJ, at least 20 LNG carriers about half the available global fleet – are trapped in the Persian Gulf, with daily freight costs soaring as demand from Asia surges, according to ship brokers.

This is a nightmare.

Liquified natural gas prices have already soared in Europe and in Asia, and this is probably only just the beginning…

Ship brokers said the 20 ships trapped in the Persian Gulf make up nearly half of all LNG ships currently available for charter, with daily rates rising to more than $200,000 from less than $98,000 before the start of the Iran hostilities.

Energy traders expect LNG prices to rise by early next week, adding to this week’s 40% rise in Asia and Europe. “The effect on LNG shipping will outlast the conflict for a few months,” Karathanos said.

Amid the scramble to procure LNG, more shipments bound for Europe are diverting to Asia. At least nine cargoes initially headed to Europe have changed course to Asia since the start of the fighting, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg, with the trend accelerating in recent days. A buffer of spare supply is quickly drying up, threatening more competition and higher prices for both regions.

Meanwhile, a very large percentage of the nitrogen fertilizer that famers in the northern hemisphere are counting on is also stuck in the Persian Gulf region…

Nearly half the world’s traded urea — the most widely used nitrogen fertilizer — comes from the Gulf region, with Qatar accounting for one-tenth of the global supply, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.

When QatarEnergy last week halted production after Iranian strikes on Ras Laffan, the world’s biggest LNG and fertilizer hub, hundreds of thousands of tons of key fertilizer nutrients and precursors were sidelined.

The compounding effects of the Iran war threaten the third major risk to global food security in six years, after the COVID-19 pandemic and Moscow’s seizure of farmland and ports used to export Ukrainian grain at the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in 2022.

If we can’t get that fertilizer into the hands of the farmers that need it, we are going to have a massive problem on our hands.

Approximately half of the entire population of the world eats food that is grown using nitrogen fertilizer…

About 4 billion people on the planet eat food grown with synthetic nitrogen fertilizers. Roughly half of the global population, in other words, is alive because of these chemicals converted into nutrients for plants, said Lorenzo Rosa, who researches sustainable energy, water, and food systems at the Carnegie Institution for Science at Stanford University.

If this war persists for an extended period of time, famine will become a major global theme.

Of course the war with Iran has also caused the greatest oil supply disruption in human history…

The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market, the International Energy Agency said in a report on Thursday slashing its annual supply outlook, shortly after the group announced its biggest-ever oil stock release.

It is now being projected that the price of oil could soon hit $150 a barrel, and that would absolutely crush the global economy…

If it remains fully closed for weeks, analysts see oil prices climbing to $150—a level that could send the U.S. and other economies into recession. Countries are going to great lengths—from emptying their strategic oil stockpiles to rerouting supplies through underutilized pipelines—to find other ways to replace the shortage. None of those ideas will come close to replacing all the lost supplies.

Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in the financial markets.

In fact, George Noble is warning that a major crisis is emerging in the private credit market…

George Noble, a longtime Fidelity fund manager and Wall Street veteran, sees big problems brewing in the booming private credit market.

The former director of Fidelity Overseas Fund recently wrote that he sees the makings of a financial crisis in the sector, echoing others who have worried about a spate of negative headlines in recent months.

So what is it specifically that has him so spooked?

Well, it is the fact that so many big players are starting to block investors from withdrawing their money…

“We’re watching a financial crisis unfold in real time,” he said in a post on X. “The last time funds started blocking investors from getting their money back, Bear Stearns collapsed six months later.”

The collapse of the investment bank is often seen as one of the first dominoes of the 2008 financial crisis. Noble pointed to recent news of redemptions at major firms, including BlackRock, Blackstone, and Blue Owl.

Noble is right.

We haven’t seen anything like this since 2008.

And now we can add Morgan Stanley to the list…

Morgan Stanley’s investment management arm became the latest asset manager to cap withdrawals from a private credit fund, telling investors in a letter Wednesday evening that it saw a wave of redemption requests this quarter.

The company’s North Haven Private Income Fund, which has $7.6 billion in total investments, received investor requests to buy back around 10.9% of outstanding shares in its quarterly tender offer. The fund capped repurchases at 5%, its previously disclosed threshold.

“By maintaining appropriate limits on the quarterly repurchase offer, the [fund] seeks to avoid asset sales during periods of market dislocation and provide for conservative capital structure management through evolving market conditions,” the letter said.

This is it guys.

What we have been waiting for has officially begun.

I hope that you are ready for what is coming next, because the months ahead are going to be absolutely filled with chaos.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes. When fighting erupted in Europe in 1914, it wasn’t initially considered to be that big of a deal. Many dismissed the conflict as yet another minor European war, and at first most of the rest of the world stayed out of it. It was only later that it came to be known as World War I. Today, there is lots of speculation that World War III “could be coming”, but of course the truth is that we are already in the middle of it. Just like during the early days of World War I, most people won’t fully understand the significance of what they are currently experiencing until later. Interestingly, it turns out that the 2026 calendar is precisely identical to the 1914 calendar…

Every now and then, the calendar quietly repeats itself. Basically, it is a mathematical coincidence that rarely captures any attention – until history gives it a chilling context and this time, it is a super chilly one!

The 2026 calendar is exactly the same as that of 1914 – the year that witnessed the first world war. And as tensions escalate between Iran and Israel – with US also being involved, the similarity has also sparked online theories, speculations and uneasy conversations about how history could somehow repeat itself.

Isn’t that wild?

The reason why the calendars for those two years are exactly the same is because they both started on a Thursday and neither one of them is a leap year…

Going by the calculations, both 1914 and 2026 share identical structures because neither year is a leap year and both begin on a Thursday. This alignment means that every date tends to fall on the same day of the week in both years. For instance, both January 1, 1914 and January 1, 2026, fall on a Thursday. Now, this creates a perfect mirror of dates and weeks throughout the entire year. Mathematically speaking, such coincidences occur periodically in the Gregorian calendar. But because 1914 is so closely tied to one of the most devastating conflicts in human history, the resemblance has led to panic.

As 2026 approached, many of us were warning that it would be a truly historic year.

According to Axios, at least 20 different nations are already militarily involved in the chaotic war that has erupted in the Middle East…

Ten days into President Trump’s Iran campaign, the war has gone global. At least 20 countries are now militarily involved — shooting, shielding or quietly supplying — while a widening energy shock punishes nations far from the front lines.

We were told that this would be a quick war.

But the regime in Iran remains in power, they continue to strike targets all over the Middle East, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz continues to be paralyzed.

Just within the past 24 hours, Iranian forces have hit 3 more cargo vessels…

Three vessels off Iran’s coast have been struck by projectiles, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said on Wednesday, the latest in a flurry of incidents reported in or near the Strait of Hormuz.

One of the ships reported it had been struck 11 nautical miles north of Oman in the Strait of Hormuz, causing a fire onboard and forcing the crew to evacuate, the UKMTO said, without identifying the vessels.

Two other incidents were also reported on Wednesday morning, with one vessel struck by a projectile about 50 nautical miles northwest of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and another sustaining damage off the coast of the UAE.

One of the vessels that was attacked was a Thailand-flagged ship that “had ignored IRGC warnings and tried to transit the Strait of Hormuz”…

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed responsibility for an attack earlier Wednesday on the Thailand-flagged bulk carrier Mayuree Naree off the coast of Oman, saying the vessel had ignored IRGC warnings and tried to transit the Strait of Hormuz.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center, run by the British military, said earlier that the vessel was hit by a projectile about 10 nautical miles off Oman’s coast in the strait.

The Iranians are not messing around.

Pretty much the only vessels that are being allowed through are Iranian tankers that are taking oil to China…

Iran has continued to send large amounts of crude oil via the Strait of Hormuz to China even as the war between U.S.-Israel and Iran has jeopardized broader supplies through the critical waterway.

Iran has sent at least 11.7 million barrels of crude oil through the Strait of Hormuz since the war began on Feb. 28, all of which were headed to China, Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, told CNBC on Tuesday.

In addition to striking cargo vessels, the Iranians also just attacked Dubai International Airport…

Iran attacked commercial ships on Wednesday across the Persian Gulf and targeted Dubai International Airport, escalating a campaign of squeezing the oil-rich region as global energy concerns mounted and American and Israeli airstrikes pounded the Islamic Republic.

Two Iranian drones hit near Dubai International Airport, home to the long-haul carrier Emirates and the world’s busiest for international travel. Four people were wounded but flights continued, the Dubai Media Office said.

This represents a major escalation, because Dubai International Airport is one of the most important airports in the world.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the Iranians are also warning that they will soon be targeting banks and financial institutions throughout the region…

Iran’s joint military command announced it would start targeting banks and financial institutions in the Middle East. That would put at risk particularly Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, which is home to many international financial institutions, as well as Saudi Arabia and the island kingdom of Bahrain.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

But it is happening.

In response to the Iranian threat, many western banks in the Middle East are evacuating their offices…

Western banks in Dubai have evacuated staff from their offices amid a warning from Iran that it will target US and Israeli economic centres across the Middle East.

British bank Standard Chartered, US multinational Citi and two other companies told employees to leave their offices in the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) and in Oud Metha on Wednesday.

London-based Standard Chartered has ​a large presence in the United Arab Emirates ⁠and offices, including in the DIFC, a financial hub home to large international ​banks and law firms.

Western politicians continue to insist that everything is just fine.

And they are trying to do all that they can to keep the price of oil down.

On Wednesday, the IEA announced a coordinated release of 400 million barrels of oil from strategic oil reserves…

The International Energy Agency on Wednesday agreed to release 400 million barrels of oil to address the supply disruption triggered by the Iran war, the largest such action in the organization’s history.

The IEA did not set out a timeline for when the stocks would hit the market. It said that the reserves would be released over a time frame that is appropriate to the circumstances of each of its 32 member countries.

IEA members are primarily advanced economies in Europe, North America and northeast Asia. The organization is tasked with maintaining global energy security. It was founded in 1974 in response to the oil embargo imposed by Arab producers over U.S. support for Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

This will provide some temporary relief.

But if this war persists for an extended period of time, it won’t be nearly enough.

The Iranians continue to insist that they will be able to push the price of oil up to $200 a barrel…

Iran’s military promised even higher gas prices. “Get ready for oil to be $200 a barrel, because the oil price depends on regional security, which you have destabilized,” Ebrahim Zolfaqari, a spokesperson for Iran’s military command, said in comments quoted by Reuters.

We shall see if they are able to achieve that goal or not.

At this moment, it does not appear that the war will be ending any time soon, and the CEO of Aramco is warning that a major disaster is looming…

Amin Nasser, the CEO of Aramco, said: ‘While we have faced disruptions in the past, this one by far is the biggest crisis the region’s oil and gas industry has faced.’

He admitted that while his firm, the world’s single biggest exporter of oil, was meeting most of its customers’ needs for now, this was only possible by tapping into storage facilities outside the Gulf.

Nasser said that these stores cannot be used for ‘an extended period of time, but for the time being, we are capitalising on it.’

Everyone needs to brace themselves for much higher energy prices.

But it isn’t just an energy crisis that we are now facing…

But oil is far from the only product for which the world economy is heavily dependent on the shallow, narrow waterway which connects Persian Gulf ports with the rest of the world. From the metals market to agriculture and autos, a de facto closure of the strait would ripple through business sectors and both the U.S. and world economy.

I am particularly concerned about the massive disruption that is happening to global fertilizer markets.

Vast amount of nitrogen fertilizer are stuck in the Middle East, and fertilizer prices are going absolutely nuts at an immensely critical time for farmers throughout the northern hemisphere…

The grocery store could be impacted, Pelli said. “Fertilizer represents one of the biggest downstream risks. Roughly one-third of global fertilizer trade transits the Strait of Hormuz, including large volumes of nitrogen exports,” he said.

New Orleans fertilizer hub urea prices have already risen from $475/metric ton to $680/metric ton. “Not great timing for the planting window in the Midwest for soy and corn,” said Darrell Fletcher, managing director of commodities at Ohio-based Bannockburn Global Forex, a foreign exchange and risk management firm.

Let’s hope that the war ends soon.

But I don’t think that is going to happen.

World War III kind of snuck up on a lot of people, but now it is here.

The death and destruction that we have witnessed so far is just the tip of the iceberg, and the entire world will be absolutely shocked by the apocalyptic events that are still ahead.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

If Iran actually starts deploying naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, we are going to see a gigantic wave of panic sweep through global financial markets. At this moment, any commercial vessels that attempt to pass through the Strait of Hormuz are sitting ducks for Iranian drones and missiles. That is why traffic through the Strait has essentially been paralyzed, and this has created the largest oil supply disruption in human history.  Yes, a few ships are still getting through, but if the Iranians deploy thousands of highly sophisticated naval mines the entire Persian Gulf will be on lockdown for the foreseeable future. If you wanted to create an unprecedented global crisis, that would be a great way to do it.

According to CBS News, U.S. intelligence officials have disclosed that they have “begun seeing indications that Iran may be preparing to deploy naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz”…

U.S. intelligence has begun seeing indications that Iran may be preparing to deploy naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz, CBS News reported Tuesday in a post on X.

The report comes as the United States warns that shipping through the strategic waterway has been disrupted during the war with Iran.

Apparently these mines would be deployed by very small vessels, and we are being told that Iran has a very large stockpile…

U.S. intelligence assets have begun to see indications Iran is taking steps to deploy mines in Strait of Hormuz shipping lane. Iran is using smaller crafts that can carry 2 to 3 mines each. While Iran’s mine stock isn’t publicly known, estimates over the years have ranged from roughly 2,000 to 6,000 naval mines of Iranian, Chinese and Russian-made variants,
@JimLaPorta reports

Let’s hope that Iran chooses not to do this, because it would represent a massive escalation.

Alarmingly, the IRGC is declaring that it will not allow any oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz at all if the U.S. and Israel continue their attacks…

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said it would not allow any oil to leave the region if attacks from the United States and Israel continue.

‘We are the ones who will determine the end of the war,’ a spokesperson said, describing Trump’s comments as ‘nonsense’, according to state media.

In response, President Trump is threatening to hit Iran twenty times harder than they have been hit so far…

“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump warned. “Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back, as a Nation, again — Death, Fire, and Fury will reign upon them — But I hope, and pray, that it does not happen!”

“This is a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait. Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated,” he added.

We have reached another major tipping point.

It will be fascinating to see what happens next.

On Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright claimed that the U.S. Navy had escorted an oil tanker through the Strait of Hormuz, and that sent oil prices plummeting.  But it has since turned out that his tweet was not accurate at all…

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the U.S. has not yet escorted any oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, contrary to a since-deleted tweet from Energy Secretary Chris Wright. But, the U.S. Navy stands ready to do so if necessary, she said.

“I was made aware of this post,” Leavitt said during her press briefing. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to the energy secretary about it directly. However, I know the post was taken down pretty quickly, and I can confirm that the U.S. Navy has not escorted a tanker or a vessel at this time, though of course that’s an option the president has said he will absolutely utilize if and when necessary at the appropriate time.”

Any U.S. warships that attempt to go through the Strait of Hormuz would be sitting ducks.

The Strait of Hormuz is very thin, so there would be nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.

And right now the Iranians still have full control over that absolutely vital waterway.

Meanwhile, the Iranians continue to target energy infrastructure all over the region.

On Tuesday, an attack by Iranian drones shut down the largest oil refinery in the Middle East…

Iranian drones struck Ruwais oil refinery, causing a fire and forcing its closure as a ‘precaution’ on Tuesday.

The facility, the largest in the Middle East, can process 922,000 barrels a day and acts as a hub for the country’s chemical, fertilizer and industrial gas plants.

‘The Ruwais refinery has halted operations out of precaution,’ a source said.

Of course the U.S. and Israel have been hitting energy infrastructure as well, and this has created quite an environmental mess.

It has been widely reported that black rain has been falling in Tehran, and the WHO is warning that this black rain could have very serious health consequences…

The World Health Organization warned on Tuesday that the “black rain” and toxic compounds in the air in Iran after strikes on oil facilities could cause respiratory problems, and it backed Iran’s advisory urging people to remain indoors.

The U.N. health agency, which has an office in Iran and works with authorities on health emergencies, said it has received multiple reports of oil-laden rain this week. Tehran was choked in black smoke on Monday after an oil refinery was hit, in an escalation in strikes on Iran’s domestic energy supplies as part of the U.S.-Israeli campaign.

“The black rain and the acidic rain coming with it is indeed a danger for the population, respiratory mainly,” WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier told a press briefing in Geneva, adding that Iran had advised people to stay indoors.

Even if the war ended tomorrow, the damage that has been done to energy infrastructure in the Middle East would take many months to repair.

I don’t think that the financial markets have fully taken this into account yet.

Sadly, it is unlikely that the war will end any time soon.

In fact, there is lots of talk in Washington that President Trump may soon send U.S. troops to take control of Kharg Island…

An island one-third the size of Manhattan controls virtually all Iranian crude oil exports — and experts say its fate could be essential to President Trump’s endgame with Tehran.

Kharg Island is located about 16 miles off the Iranian coast in the Persian Gulf, making it difficult to defend and easier to isolate — reportedly drawing the attention of administration planners.

“Kharg Island handles roughly 90% of Iran’s crude oil exports. Take it out, and this means cutting off the military budget in addition to pulling the plug on the basic services that keep Iranian society functioning,” said Mohammed Soliman, a senior fellow at the DC-based Middle East Institute.

Seizing Kharg Island would reduce Iran’s oil exports by about 90 percent, and that would cripple the regime’s ability to keep operating.

But it would also be an enormous escalation, because now U.S. ground troops would be directly involved.

We have entered such a dangerous time.

I fully expect that we will witness some absolutely breathtaking escalations in the days ahead, and I don’t think that the world is ready for what is coming next.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

What a wild week it has been already. On Sunday night, I watched as the price of oil hit $116 a barrel. It was insane. Financial markets started to panic all over the world because investors know that if the price of oil stays above $100 a barrel for an extended period of time it will absolutely crush the global economy. Our entire way of life depends upon cheap energy, because virtually every type of human activity in the modern world uses energy. I am using energy as I write this article, and you are using energy as you read this article. After the crazy spike in the price of oil that we witnessed on Sunday night, authorities quickly shifted into damage control mode, and for the moment they have successfully pushed the price of oil back below 90 dollars a barrel. But how long will they be able to keep it there?

According to CNBC, we are currently experiencing the largest oil supply disruption in the history of the world…

The U.S. war against Iran has triggered the largest oil supply disruption in history, more than double the previous record set during the Middle East crisis of the 1950s, according to an analysis by consulting firm Rapidan Energy.

About 20% of the world’s oil supply has been disrupted for nine days now as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains at a standstill. Crude prices have surged above $100 per barrel in response.

The biggest disruption before the current war was during the Suez Crisis of 1956 when Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, the energy consulting firm told clients in a Sunday note. In that crisis, about 10% of the world’s oil supply at the time was disrupted.

Needless to say, there have been other times when the global supply of oil has been disrupted for one reason or another.

During those times, nations with spare capacity have been able to step up and bridge the gap.

But this time around, the nations that possess most of the spare capacity are being directly affected by this war…

The big difference between the supply shock of the Iran war and past crises is the world has no spare oil capacity to address the problem, the analysts said. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates hold the overwhelming majority of swing capacity but they have been cut off from the global oil market by the Hormuz closure, the analysts said.

“The conflict has not only taken offline a historically high share of global supply – it has simultaneously disrupted the primary holders of spare capacity,” the Rapidan analysts said. “The result is a market with no meaningful cushion. There is no swing producer positioned to step in.”

It appears that a lot of pain at the pump is ahead for all of us.

Already, the average price of a gallon of gasoline in the state of California has surpassed the five dollar mark…

Prices are currently highest in California, where drivers were paying an average of $5.20 per gallon on Monday morning, and in Washington state, where gas hit $4.63 per gallon.

We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time.

If you can believe it, one gas station in Los Angeles is actually charging more than 8 dollars for a gallon of gasoline…

A lot of people actually thought that the article that I posted yesterday was exaggerating the threat.

I guess not.

The Iranians continue to insist that they will be able to push the price of oil up to $200 a barrel…

“If they can afford the price of oil at $200 per barrel, let them keep playing this game.”

The spokesman for a wing of the IRGC, Ebrahim Zolfighari, says the US has opened a new chapter in the war by bombing Iran’s energy infrastructure.

The good news is that for now western authorities have been able to push the price of oil back below $90 a barrel.

Early on Monday, G7 finance ministers suggested that there could soon be a coordinated release of emergency oil reserves…

The G7 said it was ready to take “necessary measures” to address the economic impact of the US-Israel war on Iran, after a meeting prompted by soaring oil prices, which rose above $100 (£74) a barrel for the first time since 2022.

Following a remote meeting on Monday, G7 finance ministers said they would closely monitor the situation but stopped short of agreeing to release emergency oil reserves.

“We discussed the current conflict in the Middle East, its impact for regional stability, global economic conditions, and financial markets, and the importance of secure trading routes,” they said in a statement.

When that news broke, it immediately ended the panic.

So that was a good thing.

But the truth is that releasing those oil reserves would only be a temporary measure, and it wouldn’t provide that much relief.

Later on Monday, the price of oil really started plummeting once President Trump said that “the war is very complete”…

President Trump told CBS News that he believes the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran is “very far ahead of schedule.”

“I think the war is very complete, pretty much,” he said. “They have no navy, no communications, they’ve got no air force. Their missiles are down to a scatter. Their drones are being blown up all over the place, including their manufacturing of drones. If you look, they have nothing left. There’s nothing left in a military sense.”

Of course the war is not even close to over, but Trump’s statement was able to push the price of oil way down.

And during that same interview, Trump warned that he was considering taking over the Strait of Hormuz…

Speaking to CBS News Senior White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang on Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump said that he is considering taking further action to secure the Strait of Hormuz, the critical waterway spanning from Iran to Oman through which a fifth of global oil supplies flow annually.

Trump said that while some ships are moving through the Strait despite the Iranian threat, he said that he is “thinking about taking it over.”

It would take boots on the ground to physically secure the Strait of Hormuz, and Trump knows that.

So what are we to make of his contradictory statements?

The Chinese have also been very alarmed by what has been going on in the Strait of Hormuz, because they get a lot of their oil from the Middle East.

Just hours ago, China warned that it “will take necessary measures to safeguard its own energy security”…

“Energy security is of paramount importance to the global economy, and all parties bear responsibility for ensuring stable and uninterrupted energy supplies,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun said Monday when asked whether Beijing would join G7 discussions about a coordinated release of strategic petroleum reserves.

“China will take necessary measures to safeguard its own energy security,” Guo added, referring reporters to the country’s “relevant authorities” for details.

China has repeatedly called for unimpeded tanker access through the strait, citing its importance to global trade, and Chinese officials have been holding talks with Iran about resuming safe oil passage, according to media reports last week. At the same time, Beijing has avoided directly blaming Tehran and has repeatedly condemned the U.S.-Israeli offensive as a violation of international law.

The Chinese are usually very hesitant to take military action.

But once they decide to pull the trigger, they don’t mess around.

Personally, I believe that this crisis is far from over.

And that means that the price of oil could ultimately go much higher.

Former IEA executive Neil Atkinson seems to agree with that assessment.  In fact, he is convinced that “the sky is the limit” as for what this war could mean for the price of oil…

“Though there are oil stocks around the world, the point is that if this closure of the Strait persists, those oil stocks if they are deployed will be depleted and we are going to be in a situation where, with the oil production actually shut in, in Iraq and possibly in Kuwait and maybe even in time in Saudi Arabia, that we are going to be in a crisis the likes of which we have never seen before,” Atkinson told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe.”

Asked what this could mean for oil prices, Atkinson replied: “Sorry, we are getting into the realms of educated guesswork here. I mean, there is no precedent for this. The sky is the limit.”

It would be wonderful if this war comes to an end before the end of this month.

That would be a good thing for the entire world.

But if that doesn’t happen, it is going to be exceedingly difficult for western authorities to keep the price of oil down.

At this moment the price of oil is the most important economic number in the world, and if it rises above the $100 mark for an extended period of time the consequences will be disastrous.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

There is no way to get around it. We are facing a major global economic disruption, and the longer this war goes on the worse it will get. As I have reminded my readers on numerous occasions, our entire way of life is predicated on cheap energy, and the Middle East is the most important energy producing region in the entire world. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has been paralyzed, and energy infrastructure has been under attack by both sides. In fact, this morning Tehran was “covered in thick black clouds of smoke” after a refinery and multiple oil depots were destroyed…

Even if traffic through the Strait of Hormuz was restored tomorrow, and that is not going to happen, the damage that has been done to energy infrastructure throughout the Middle East would take many months to repair.

It would be difficult for me to overstate the severity of the disruption that we are currently witnessing.

In neighboring Iraq, oil production has already fallen by 70 percent since the start of the war…

Oil production in Iraq has fallen by 70% since the war broke out, according to Reuters. The country is producing about 1.3 million barrels per day now, down from about 4.3 million before the war. Kuwait, another oil-rich Gulf state, has also slashed its oil production.

Unfortunately, production is also way down in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other nations in the region.

Most people living in the western world have no idea what this is going to mean.

The average price of a gallon of gasoline in the United States has soared over the past 10 days, but this is just the beginning…

According to AAA, the average price for regular unleaded fuel in Maryland on Saturday was $3.46 per gallon. This time last week, the price was $2.94.

The price of fuel in Maryland was above the national average. The country’s average on Saturday was $3.41 per gallon of regular gas.

Maryland ranked 10th out of the 50 states and Washington D.C., for the most expensive regular fuel prices. California has the highest prices, with its average being $5.07 per gallon.

Of course the price of gasoline affects the price of so many other things that we regularly purchase.

We have already been experiencing a seemingly endless cost of living crisis, but now we could see prices escalate to an entirely new level.

The energy minister of Qatar, Saad al-Kaabi, is warning that the war in the Middle East “will bring down the economies of the world”…

“This will bring down the economies of the world,” Saad al-Kaabi, Qatar’s energy minister and CEO of its state-owned energy company, told the Financial Times on Friday. “If this war continues for a few weeks, GDP growth around the world will be impacted. Everybody’s energy price is going to go higher.”

Qatar, like all of the major oil and gas exporters along the Persian Gulf, has had to almost entirely halt shipments over the past week. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz that links the Gulf to the rest of the world has been at a standstill as operators fear attacks and insurance companies cancel war coverage.

We are in far more trouble than most people realize.

Even before this war with Iran erupted, the employment numbers in the U.S. were moving in a very troubling direction.

In fact, the BLS is telling us that the U.S. economy actually lost 92,000 jobs during the month of February…

The U.S. economy lost jobs in February, a month marred by severe winter weather and a strike at a major health-care provider, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls fell by 92,000 for the month, compared with the estimate for 50,000 and below the downwardly revised January total of 126,000. February marked the third time in the past five months that payrolls declined, following a sharp revision showing a drop of 17,000 in December.

Read the last sentence of that quote again.

The U.S. has now lost jobs in three of the past five months.

We haven’t experienced a stretch like this since the early days of the pandemic.

And every day even more major companies announce new layoffs.

For example, Capital One has decided to give the axe to 1,139 employees in Illinois…

Capital One has announced major layoffs that will affect 1,139 employees in an office in Riverwoods, Illinois, according to multiple reports.

Perhaps if Capital One wasn’t spending so much money bombarding us with obnoxious commercials they wouldn’t have to let so many workers go.

We are also being told that Oracle is “gearing up to cut thousands of jobs”…

Oracle is reportedly gearing up to cut thousands of jobs in order to fund AI data centers. According to a widely cited report in Bloomberg, the tech giant is facing a cash crunch as it looks to massively expand its AI data center operations.

Oracle was supposed to be one of the big winners of the “AI boom”.

Sadly, the “AI boom” is rapidly turning into the “AI bust”, and that is going to have enormous implications for all of us.

As the cost of living rises and the employment market gets tighter and tighter, ordinary Americans have less money to spend.

According to CNN, U.S. retail sales unexpectedly fell in January…

That comes as spending itself is already hitting a rough patch: Retail sales declined 0.2% in January from the prior month, the Commerce Department said Friday, the biggest decline since May. January’s reading came in below expectations of 0%, according to a poll of economists by data firm FactSet. The figures are adjusted for seasonal swings but not inflation. The report was delayed a few weeks because of last year’s government shutdown.

This is such a tough time to be in the retail business.

Thousands of stores have been closing all over the nation, and most of our once thriving shopping malls are either dead or dying…

A ‘dead’ mall in the Bay Area has taken its next victim – and customers are heartbroken.

Barnes & Noble announced it will close its branch in the Shops at Tanforan – a mall that just last year was slammed with the closure of another staple, JCPenney.

In fact, only a few stores remain open at the Shops at Tanforan, including a jeweler, a bridal shop and a cell phone store. There’s still a Target and Starbucks at the mall, as well as a Chipotle in the food court.

Now that we are engaged in a major war in the Middle East that is massively disrupting global trade, economic numbers all over the world are likely to deteriorate dramatically in the months ahead.

In addition to potentially facing the worst energy crisis in more than 50 years, we are also potentially facing a historic fertilizer crisis.

Normally, one-fourth of all nitrogen fertilizer that is traded globally goes through the Strait of Hormuz.

If this war does not end quickly, we could soon see a worldwide food price shock that will hit impoverished countries extremely hard.

So let us hope for the best, but let us also get prepared for the worst.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.

If you have not already done so, I would recommend filling up your vehicle, because it looks like the price of gasoline is going to go much higher. At the very beginning of this war with Iran, the price of oil didn’t rise too much because many investors were anticipating a quick victory over Iran. But now it has become exceedingly clear that there will be no quick victory, and the price of oil is spiking dramatically. Unless something really crazy happens, this is going to be an extended conflict, and that means that the flow of oil out of the Middle East will not return to normal for quite some time.

According to CNBC, the Iranians just hit another oil tanker with a missile…

Iran claimed to have struck an oil tanker with a missile, according to a state media report. Iran’s Revolutionary Guard ordered a closure of the Strait of Hormuz earlier this week and threatened to attack tankers passing through it, according to state media.

The British Navy on Thursday reported a large explosion at a tanker at anchor in Iraqi territorial waters. The ship’s master reported seeing a small vessel flee the scene. The crew is safe and no fires were reported.

The Iranian side of the Strait of Hormuz is absolutely teeming with anti-ship missiles.

Until something is done about that, traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will continue to be paralyzed…

“You’ve essentially had the Strait of Hormuz grind down to a halt,” explained Matt Smith, an analyst at Kpler, a data and analytics firm.

He said the slowdown isn’t necessarily because Iran has formally closed the waterway, though Tehran has threatened to, but because shippers are weighing the risk of missile or drone strikes in the narrow corridor.

The result, Smith said, is a growing bottleneck of crude and refined products. And if the disruption stretches from days into weeks, Smith warned, the fallout could intensify quickly.

“If this drags on for weeks, the ramifications are huge,” he said, pointing to early ripple effects already emerging in global energy markets.

Many are comparing the current state of affairs to the oil embargo of 1973.

But the truth is that the supply disruption that we are experiencing now is far greater than anything that we experienced back then…

So how does this get fixed?

Well, the truth is that it isn’t going to get fixed until the war ends.

At this stage, the U.S. and Israel have achieved full aerial dominance and are bombing the living daylights out of Iran.

But that won’t bring an end to the regime.

Regime leaders are now hiding deep underneath hospitals, schools and mosques, 125,000 heavily-armed members of the IRGC have full control of the major cities, and Iran has one of the largest armies in the world.

Sending in a few thousand Kurds won’t do much against an army that boasts more than 600,000 men on active duty and more than 300,000 men among the reserves.

In order to bring the regime in Iran to an end, it will require either a ground invasion or the use of nuclear weapons.

Needless to say, the Trump administration is not even considering either of those two options.

The other way that this war could stop is if the U.S. and Israel simply decide to stop attacking and allow the current regime to remain in power.

That would be considered a victory for Iran and a loss for the U.S. and Israel.

Personally, I don’t think that President Trump will be eager to admit defeat any time soon.

So for now, the war will continue, and the global oil crisis will escalate.

Interestingly, the Chinese are trying to convince the Iranians to allow vessels that are carrying oil and liquified natural gas to China to travel safely through the region…

China is in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and Qatari liquefied natural gas vessels safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz as the US-Israeli war on Tehran intensifies, three diplomatic sources tell Reuters.

The war, which entered its sixth day on Thursday, has left the critical shipping passageway all but shut, with countries around the world cut off from a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies.

China, which has friendly relations with Iran and relies heavily on Middle Eastern supplies, is unhappy about the Islamic Republic’s move to paralyze shipping through the Strait and is pressing Tehran to allow safe passage for the vessels, according to the sources.

China is very dependent on oil and liquified natural gas from the Middle East, and I have a feeling that the Iranians may make an exception for them.

But the rest of us are going to experience significant pain.

Since the war began, gasoline prices have already been jumping all over the country…

Retail gasoline prices in the U.S. have jumped nearly 27 cents since last week to $3.25 per gallon on average, according to the motorist group AAA. The last time gas prices made a similar jump was in March 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine, the group said.

It is obvious that this is just the beginning.

Unless some sort of a miracle happens, the price of gasoline is only going to go higher, and the White House is desperately searching for solutions…

President Donald Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, is telling his advisers to bring ideas to the Oval Office to lower gasoline prices in the wake of the U.S. attack on Iran, according to two energy industry executives familiar with the conversations.

The White House is “looking under every rock for ideas on improving energy prices, especially gasoline prices,” said one of the executives, who was granted anonymity to describe internal administration discussions.

Apparently things are so tense that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and other top advisers “are getting screamed at”…

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and other advisers focused on energy policy, including a council led by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, “are getting screamed at to find some good news” on bringing down prices, the same executive said. “Folks are scrambling for announcements and messaging to counter the narrative” of rising prices, this person said.

I don’t know what Doug Burgum is supposed to do.

He can’t stop this war.

Now that missiles are flying back and forth, there is no turning back now.

Sensing an opportunity, Vladimir Putin is threatening to cut off the flow of natural gas to Europe…

A smirking Vladimir Putin has threatened to halt gas supplies to Europe and Britain amid a spike in energy prices triggered by the Iran crisis. Oil and gas prices have soared following the US and Israeli attack on Iran and Tehran’s strikes on Gulf Arab neighbours. The conflict has paralysed shipping through the Strait of Hormuz and forced the shutdown of Qatar’s LNG production and Saudi Arabia’s largest oil refinery. The Russian president said oil prices were rising due to the ‘aggression against Iran’ and due to Western restrictions on Russian oil, while European gas prices were rising because customers were willing to buy gas volumes at higher prices due to events in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.

During the weeks ahead, global energy prices are going to be such a huge story.

All over the world, people are going to be blaming the United States and Israel for the price of gasoline.

We were warned in advance that this sort of a scenario was coming, and now it is here.

The longer this war drags on, the worse global economic conditions will become.

Our entire way of life depends upon cheap energy, and now that entire paradigm has been put at risk.

Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.

About the Author: Michael Snyder’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com.  He has also written nine other books that are available on Amazon.com including “Chaos”, “End Times”, “7 Year Apocalypse”, “Lost Prophecies Of The Future Of America”, “The Beginning Of The End”, and “Living A Life That Really Matters”.  When you purchase any of Michael’s books you help to support the work that he is doing.  You can also get his articles by email as soon as he publishes them by subscribing to his Substack newsletter.  Michael has published thousands of articles on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News, and he always freely and happily allows others to republish those articles on their own websites.  These are such troubled times, and people need hope.  John 3:16 tells us about the hope that God has given us through Jesus Christ: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  If you have not already done so, we strongly urge you to invite Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior today.