Is Trump blowing up the world economy - as well as Iran?
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 9 March 2026
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For a Prime Minister obsessed with driving down the cost of living, the ongoing conflict in the Middle East is shaping up to be something of a nightmare. Oil prices have surged, the Bank of England is now expected to raise, rather than cut, interest rates, and the AA is telling drivers to consider cutting down on non-essential journeys due to the price of the pumps.
The war has shown no sign of winding up - indeed over the weekend Donald Trump seemed to leave open the idea that it could last more than six weeks. Remarkably, his press secretary failed to rule out a return of the draft, not seen in America since the Vietnam war. Why? Because the desired endgame for the Trump administration is still very difficult to see. A new Supreme Leader has been installed and appears to be as hardline as his predecessor father. Iranian missiles are still raining down on the region. And if gas prices continue to squeeze Americans, could Trump find himself blinking first?
Later, Tony Blair's off the record remarks about Keir Starmer became very much on the record after his criticisms of the current Prime Minister's resistance to joining the US efforts in Iran made their way into the press. Jon and Lewis discuss why Downing Street is unlikely to be losing any sleep from the advice being dished out by its former occupant.
The News Agents is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. The longer this goes on, the more likely the potential for an impact on our economy, impact into their lives and households of everybody and every |
| 0:22.4 | business. And our job is to get ahead of that, to look around the corner, assess the risk, |
| 0:27.6 | monitor the risks and work with others in relation to that. The Prime Minister there talking |
| 0:32.4 | about the risks to the UK and elsewhere flowing from the Iran War. |
| 0:38.0 | As ever, Kirstama was understated. |
| 0:41.3 | As of Monday, we are now facing what looks like it could be |
| 0:44.5 | the most severe energy price shock we've seen since the 1970s. |
| 0:50.7 | And don't think that America, with its vast oil supplies, is immune or protected from this. |
| 0:57.8 | It's not. And might that be what leads Donald Trump to end this war? Welcome to the news agents. |
| 1:09.6 | The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. And last week, we were naturally talking The News Agents. |
| 1:11.4 | It's John. |
| 1:12.2 | It's Lewis. |
| 1:13.0 | And last week, we were naturally talking a lot about the military side of things, |
| 1:17.5 | how relatively successful, certainly awesome, in the literal sense of the word, |
| 1:21.8 | that had been the death of the Ayatollah. |
| 1:23.8 | We have now a new supreme leader, Kelsey Brees, the Ayatollah's son. |
| 1:27.3 | We might talk about that a little bit. But it feels as if, as this second full week of the war starts, that we will be talking far more about the potential political and economic consequences for all of us across the West. There has been turmoil in the markets this morning, in Asia and in Europe, |
| 1:46.5 | half 12 in London at the time of recording. Oil prices have risen by 25% over the weekend. They're |
| 1:53.9 | now above, hovering up between $106 and $110 a barrel and climbing. Bear in mind a month or so ago, they were |
| 2:02.1 | between $60 and $70 a barrel. G7 finance leaders including our own Chancellor Rachel |
| 2:08.1 | Reeves are meeting digitally this afternoon to discuss joint release of emergency reserves. |
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