Oil tops $125 a barrel as ‘Trump plans more Iran strikes’ – Live

US news outlet Axios reported that Donald Trump is considering launching more strikes on Iran to break the peace talks deadlock.

CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper is set to present a plan for a ‘short and powerful’ wave of strikes against Iran that would likely target key infrastructure.

The aim of this would be to either break the deadlock on peace talks, or deliver a killing blow against Iran.

Trump is also being presented a plan to take over part of the Strait of Hormuz with the US military in order to restore global shipping.

This plan may require US soldiers to be sent to the Middle East.

Another plan that is being discussed is a possible special forces operation to secure Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium.

The price of oil has soared past $125 per barrel – the highest level in four years.

During Asia’s trading hours, Brent crude – the international benchmark – rose nearly 7 per cent to levels not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Analysts said traders were beginning to shift to the view that the crisis will not be as short as initially hoped.

Energy prices have risen as peace talks between the US and Iran appear to have stalled while the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for the trade of gas and oil, remains closed.

Rice supplies are expected to fall this year as farmers cut planting acreage across Asia because of fertilizer shortages and soaring fuel costs from the Iran war.

Rice is central to global food security, and even modest supply disruptions can ripple through countries, lifting prices and straining household budgets, particularly among price-sensitive consumers in Asia and Africa.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization in April forecast rice output would expand by 2 per cent to a record high in 2025/26.

The effects of the Iran war are impacting farmers in top exporters Thailand and Vietnam as well as the import-reliant Philippines and Indonesia, growers and traders said. The war has cut fuel and fertilizer flows through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint that connects the Gulf to global markets.

‘Farmers have already started planting rice in some countries and are using fewer inputs because prices have gone up,’ said Maximo Torero, chief economist at the UN FAO.

‘We are going to see a tighter global supply situation in the second half of the year and early next year.’

Ships and boats stranded in the Strait of Hormuz

The US is pushing for a new international coalition to restart shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as talks with Tehran stall, US outlets are reporting.

The State Department sent an internal cable to US embassies calling on diplomats to convince governments around the world to join the ‘Maritime Freedom Construct,’ a US-led bloc to share information, coordinate diplomatically, and enforce sanctions, the Wall Street Journal has reported.

Iran has sought to extract a price for being attacked by exerting control over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which one-fifth of global oil typically transits.

As oil prices remain elevated for weeks, Trump has called on allies to unblock the strait, saying last month that ‘this should have always been a team effort.’

The coalition will see the State Department serving as a ‘diplomatic operations hub’ and the US Central Command providing ‘real-time maritime domain awareness,’ the Journal reported, citing the cable sent on Tuesday.

Iran’s military has threatened to ‘respond’ if the US blockade continues with Tehran warning American ships could be sunk.

On Wednesday, the military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Mojtaba Khamenei reiterated the warning, without elaborating.

‘We will not tolerate the naval blockade. If it continues, Iran will respond,’ Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander-in-chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who was named as a military adviser by Khamenei in March told state television.

He also warned against a new round of fighting between the US and Iran, saying it could possibly see US ships sunk and ‘its soldiers will be killed.’

‘If the US starts another war, it should expect that we take a large number of them prisoner,’ he added.

Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has claimed a US naval blockade on Iranian ports is ‘doomed to fail’ as Trump signals American military action could last months.

Pezeshkian says targeting Iran’s ports will deepen disruptions in the Gulf and fail to achieve its targets.

‘Any attempt to impose a maritime blockade or restrictions is contrary to international law… and is doomed to fail,’ he said in a statement.

He also blamed the US and Israel for the ongoing blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, again defending the decision to keep out ‘hostile countries’.

In a message commemorating National Persian Gulf Day on state media, Pezeskhian said the waterway was ‘a symbol of the great Iranian nation’s resistance’.

Donald Trump has threatened to pull US troops from Germany over Berlin’s refusal to back the war in Iran or join a peacekeeping force in the Strait of Hormuz.

The President has lashed out at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz who earlier this week said Iran was ‘humiliating’ Washington at the negotiating table.

‘The United ​States is ⁠studying and reviewing the possible reduction of Troops ⁠in Germany, with a ​determination ⁠to be made over ‌the next short period of time,’ Mr Trump said on ‌Truth Social.

Speaking to students in Marsberg, Merz suggested it was Trump’s team that was being outplayed, despite confident statements from the White House.

‘The Iranians are obviously very skilled at negotiating, or rather, very skilful at not negotiating, letting the Americans travel to Islamabad and then leave again without any result,’ he said.

US officials including Vice President JD Vance twice turned back last week from trips to Pakistan to negotiate with Iran, which has voiced doubts about Trump’s sincerity for diplomacy.

Donald Trump said a US naval blockade against Iran could last months leading oil prices to spike to their highest level in more than four years.

Trump is expected to receive a briefing later today on new plans for potential military action in Iran from Admiral Brad Cooper, the head of US Central Command, two sources with knowledge told Axios.

Meeting oil executives, Trump contended that the blockade of Iranian ports – which Tehran has demanded must end before any deal – was more effective than bombing.

The President has told national security officials to prepare for a long blockade of Iran’s ports in order to compel Tehran to give up its nuclear programme, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Trump, according to the report, does not believe that Iran is negotiating in good faith and hopes it can be forced to suspend uranium enrichment for 20 years and accept tight restrictions thereafter.

Speaking after his day with King Charles and Queen Camilla, Trump appeared to take a jab at Sir Keir Starmer.

He described Charles as ‘fantastic’ and a ‘great friend.’

Trump added: ‘I think if he were doing that, if that were up to him, he would have probably helped us with Iran.’

The UK government today said it would introduce new legislation to tackle state-sponsored threats carried out by proxies, after two Jewish men were stabbed in north London in an apparent antisemitic attack on Wednesday.

Security minister Dan Jarvis told Times Radio the government would fast track legislation which would allow the prosecution of people acting as a proxy of a state-sponsored group under Britain’s National Security Act.

The government said the new powers would mean proxies could be dealt with in the same way as foreign intelligence services.

The plans were announced after Wednesday’s stabbings, which follow a spate of recent attacks, many involving arson, on Jewish targets in London. Last October, two people and an attacker were killed after a man drove at a synagogue in the northern English city of Manchester.

Britain’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, Jonathan Hall, told the BBC the attacks had become ‘the biggest national security emergency’ since 2017, when there were a string of high profile attacks.

The attacks have occurred amid warnings from security officials that Iran has sought to use criminal proxies to carry out hostile activity.

Police said after an arson attack at a synagogue this month that they were investigating possible Iranian links to the incidents. A pro-Iranian government group has said it was responsible.

Jarvis also said on Thursday that there would be an additional £25million to protect the Jewish community, which the government said brings the total funding this year to £58million.

Iran’s consumer prices rose more than 70% between this March and April, compared to last year, Tehran’s government has admitted.

The Statistical Center of Iran reported today that average inflation in the 12 months ending in April rose 53.7% from the same period a year earlier.

Overnight, CENTCOM chief Admiral Brad Cooper said US forces redirected the 42 commercial ship that tried to get though the US blockade of Iranian ships.

He said: ‘Right now there are 41 tankers with 69million barrels of oil that the Iranian regime can’t sell. That’s an estimated $6billion-plus from which Iran’s leadership cannot financially benefit.

‘The blockade is highly effective and US forces remain fully committed to total enforcement.’