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Iran Digs In After Latest Trump Threat on Civilian Targets
The U.S. military said it had struck Iran for a 12th consecutive day. The Iranian military said it had launched strikes on American targets in Kuwait.
Published July 22, 2026Updated July 23, 2026Eric SchmittShirin HakimAlan Yuhas and Pranav Baskar
Here’s the latest.
Iranian leaders dug in against President Trump’s threats on Wednesday to strike bridges and power plants in Iran if it targeted any more ships in the Strait of Hormuz, with the foreign minister warning that his country would fight “an eye for an eye.”
Hours after that declaration, an Iranian ally in Yemen claimed to have attacked two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea. And U.S. Central Command said it launched another wave of strikes to degrade Iran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping. The targets of the attacks included Iranian drone and missile storage sites and air defenses, Central Command said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Thursday that it had launched attacks on U.S. military targets in Kuwait, including a communications tower as retaliation for American attacks on similar infrastructure in Iran.
The Red Sea strikes were claimed by the Houthis, a Yemeni militant group that earlier this week announced a blockade on Saudi ships in the Red Sea. The Saudi transport authority confirmed an attack on one of the two ships the Houthis claimed to have struck, and said that the crew was safe. It did not specify the origin of the attack.
The escalating threats by U.S. and Iranian leaders and the reports of the Red Sea strikes stoked fears of a widening war focused not just on Mr. Trump’s stated goal of thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions but also on the control of waterways critical to the flow of global oil and gas supplies.
With neither Iran nor the United States showing willingness to step back from the fighting, the price of Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, surged 4 percent to nearly $95 a barrel as the sides traded threats.
On Wednesday morning, Mr. Trump threatened to attack a bridge or power plant “any time the Islamic Republic of Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.” Hours later, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, said, “any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response.” Deliberate strikes on civilian infrastructure could be considered a war crime under international law.
Mr. Trump accompanied his bluster over the past week and a half with the reinstatement of a naval blockade on Iran, but the escalatory tactics have so far failed to either stop Iranian attacks or force the country’s hard-line leaders, who want to prolong the war, back to the negotiating table.
Among the disputes between the sides, the Strait of Hormuz has become a critical issue. The strait was open and free to transit before the war began, but Iran has proved it can interfere with traffic through threats and strikes and, in doing so, exert powerful leverage over global markets. Adding to the pressure, the Houthis declared their Red Sea blockade on Monday.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
The return of killed soldiers: Mr. Trump, before attending the return of four Army soldiers killed in Iranian strikes, told reporters that they had died supportive of the war he was waging. He did not say how he knew the fallen soldiers’ views, and his remarks came as Americans, including Republicans, have grown increasingly critical of the war.
Deadly strike: The deputy governor of Khuzestan Province in southeastern Iran said in comments to Iran’s state broadcaster that a U.S. missile strike killed two people early Thursday near a passenger terminal at a border crossing between Iran and Iraq.
Nuclear deal: The Trump administration signed a broad nuclear agreement with Saudi Arabia on Wednesday that could lead to the country enriching its own fuel for nuclear reactors, U.S. officials said. Read more ›
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the main U.S. goal on Iran is to ensure it can never develop a nuclear weapon. “Our issue, and our concern, and our focus, is denuclearizing Iran,” he told reporters while in Manila. “They can never have a nuclear weapon.” President Trump had said repeatedly that he had destroyed Iran’s nuclear program with the U.S. military attack on three Iranian nuclear sites in June 2025. Iran, however, has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium that is widely believed to be stored deep underground, and that it enriched further after Trump withdrew from an Obama-era nuclear deal in 2018.
July 23, 2026, 5:08 a.m. ETRubio told reporters that the Houthis had been smart earlier to stay out of the war. “I hope that will de-escalate because I think the Houthis, frankly, got snookered into this thing by by the Iranians,” he said. “They should stay out of it.”
July 23, 2026, 4:47 a.m. ETSecretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the United States would continue to strike Iran until its leadership was serious about making a deal. “The problem with Iran is every time they make a deal, the people that are in charge there, they either break it or they want to change it,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to the Philippines.
“The price will continue to get higher every single night until they come to their senses,” Rubio added. “Maybe in a few days, they’ll be ready to make a deal once they realize that this is not a winning proposition for them.”
July 23, 2026, 4:44 a.m. ETThe Jordanian military intercepted four Iranian missiles and six drones, Jordan’s state news agency said on Thursday. In recent days, Jordan has come under intensifying Iranian attack, with Tehran saying it is targeting U.S. forces and facilities operating there. Three U.S. soldiers have been killed in Jordan in the past week.
July 23, 2026, 2:22 a.m. ETIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said on Thursday morning that it had launched attacks on American military targets in Jordan. The statement from the Revolutionary Guards, published by state media, did not specify which bases or areas were targeted.
July 23, 2026, 12:58 a.m. ETThe Iranian military said on Thursday morning that it had launched attacks on U.S. military targets in Kuwait. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said in a statement published by state media that its targets included a communications tower as retaliation for U.S. attacks on communications infrastructure in Iran.
July 22, 2026, 11:25 p.m. ETU.S. Central Command says American forces have completed the 12th consecutive round of strikes on Iran, targeting military sites including missile and drone storage and air defenses. Central Command says the latest wave of strikes ended at 10:30 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, or 6 a.m in Iran.
July 22, 2026, 8:55 p.m. ETAn area around the passenger terminal at the Shalamcheh border crossing between Iran and Iraq in Khuzestan Province was reportedly struck by U.S. missiles, according to the deputy governor of the province, whose comments were carried by IRIB, Iran’s state broadcaster, early Thursday. Citing Iraqi media, IRIB claimed the strike targeted a rest area used by Iranian police officers at the crossing. The deputy governor later said that two people had been killed.
In a separate report, the deputy governor said that a location near Andimeshk, about 135 miles north of Shalamcheh, had also been struck by U.S. missiles, without identifying the target. Both Shalamcheh and Andimeshk sit along important routes for cross-border movement and the flow of supplies through southwestern Iran.
July 22, 2026, 8:45 p.m. ETIran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said one of three oil tankers trying to pass through a “mined route south of the Strait of Hormuz” caught fire after an explosion, prompting the other two to turn back, in a statement carried by IRNA, Iran’s official state news agency, early Thursday morning. It was unclear which countries the three tankers were from. The Guards accused the U.S. military of encouraging the attempted passage and said the Strait of Hormuz was under Iranian control and would remain completely closed as long as American military operations in the region continued. The statement also warned that any tanker trying to pass without coordinating with Iran would “meet the same fate” and said a punitive operation would follow.
July 22, 2026, 8:12 p.m. ETHouthis in Yemen claim strikes on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea.
The Iranian-backed Houthi militant group in Yemen claimed on Wednesday that it had targeted two Saudi oil tankers with missiles and drones in the Red Sea. It would be the first such attack since the group announced a blockade aimed at Saudi Arabia.
The Houthis said in a statement that the Encelia and the Layla were violating the blockade. The group claimed that the strikes had caused large fires to break out on both vessels. Saudi Arabia’s transportation authority confirmed an attack the Encelia in a statement published by state media, and said the ship’s crew was safe after a fire broke out. It did not specify the attack’s origin or mention the other tanker the Houthis claimed to have struck.
The Houthis, a rebel group that controls a significant part of Yemen, announced the naval blockade on Monday. The move threatened to open a new front in the war in the Middle East and to further disrupt global energy supplies already reduced by the fighting between the United States and Iran in and near the Strait of Hormuz.
Mohammed al-Basha, a U.S.-based risk adviser focused on Yemen, said the tanker strikes on Wednesday demonstrated that the Houthis were “racing up” the “escalation ladder.” He said the attacks could prompt a military response by Saudi Arabia, an Iranian adversary that has relied on Red Sea routes in recent months to export millions of barrels of oil.
Both the Layla and the Encelia are Saudi-flagged tankers according to public ship-tracking data. While the Layla was last tracked five days ago in the Red Sea, the Encelia was located there Thursday morning, the tracking data showed.
The Houthis also claimed that in addition to attacking the two oil tankers, they forced around “10 ships to retreat and return.”
That claim could not be independently verified, but at least six vessels did reverse course in the Red Sea on Monday and Tuesday after the militia warned shipping companies to avoid Saudi ports, according to Kpler, a maritime data firm. It was not clear if those ships were included in the Houthis’ count.
While the Saudis and the Houthis have been in a fragile stalemate since a cease-fire in 2022, tensions erupted last week when the Houthis accused Saudi Arabia of striking Yemen’s main international airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in a dispute over an Iranian plane that tried to land there. The Houthis retaliated by attacking the Abha airport in southern Saudi Arabia, the first direct Houthi strike on Saudi soil since early 2022.
The Houthis have weaponized their ability to disrupt shipping in the Red Sea before.
During the war in Gaza, which began in late 2023, the Houthis attacked commercial shipping in the Red Sea with drones, missiles and hijacking, trying to exert pressure on Israel and its allies. By some estimates, a Houthi blockade could affect more than 3 percent of the global oil market.
Ismaeel Naar contributed reporting.
Show moreJuly 22, 2026, 6:16 p.m. ETKuwait’s army said in a statement that it was intercepting drone attacks from Iran. The army didn’t specify the location of the strikes, but said the booming sounds were air defenses intercepting hostile targets.
July 22, 2026, 6:16 p.m. ETA location in Bushehr, the capital of the southern Iranian province of the same name, was hit in a U.S. missile strike, according to IRNA, Iran’s official state news agency. The report did not identify the target or provide details about casualties or damage. Bushehr Province has come under repeated attack this month and is home to Iran’s only operating nuclear power plant, though there was no indication that the facility was affected.
July 22, 2026, 6:10 p.m. ETU.S. Central Command said it began another wave of strikes against Iranian military targets shortly after midnight local time, aimed to “degrade Iran’s ability to threaten civilian mariners and commercial vessels.” The military did not specify where it was striking in Iran.
July 22, 2026, 6:07 p.m. ETThe Houthis also claimed that in addition to attacking the oil tankers, they forced around “10 ships to retreat and return.”
July 22, 2026, 5:39 p.m. ETThe Houthis, an Iran-backed group in Yemen, said in a statement on Wednesday evening that it had targeted two Saudi oil tankers with missiles and drones in the Red Sea. The Saudi authorities did not immediately confirm the strike, which would be the first shipping attack claimed by the Houthis since the group on Monday announced a blockade on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports.
A monitoring group led by the British Navy reported a tanker being struck by an unknown projectile and catching fire in the Red Sea, but didn’t specify the projectile’s origin.
July 22, 2026, 5:30 p.m. ETIt’s after midnight Thursday in Iran and state media have reported sounds of explosions being heard in Ahvaz, the capital of Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province in the southeast, and a missile strike hitting a warehouse used to store asphalt on the outskirts of the Ramshir, about 50 miles south of Ahvaz. Explosions were also heard in villages on Iran’s southern Gulf of Oman coast near the Strait of Hormuz. The targets and extent of any damage were not immediately clear.
July 22, 2026, 4:45 p.m. ETKatie Rogers, a White House correspondent, reported from Washington.
Speaking for fallen soldiers, Trump says they supported the Iran war.
President Trump on Wednesday witnessed the return of four young Army soldiers recently killed overseas, telling reporters beforehand that each had died supportive of the deadly war he was waging with Iran.
“All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,’” Mr. Trump said as he traveled to Dover Air Force Base to attend the dignified transfer. “They won’t have a nuclear weapon. So we’re going to honor them.”
Later, Mr. Trump took one soldier’s grieving family to his political rally in Georgia.
The president did not say how he knew the fallen soldiers’ views, but he decided to speak for them at a perilous political moment. Americans, including Republicans, have grown increasingly critical of the war in Iran, and the killings of U.S. service members were a grim, high-profile reminder that the president had failed to end a war that he had promised would only amount to “a little excursion.”
The excursion has left at least 18 service members dead, a number that Mr. Trump has tried to both defend and diminish in recent days as the conflict grows bloodier.
In a social media post on Tuesday, he compared the number of troop deaths in the Iran war with death counts in other conflicts, including the Vietnam War and the single-day mission that ousted Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan president, last winter.
Mr. Trump has been proud to say that the Venezuela mission resulted in zero deaths, and he has repeatedly pointed out that conflicts in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq resulted in thousands of them. But when he traveled to Delaware on Wednesday, Mr. Trump was met with a stark reminder of the cost of each casualty.
Flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other senior military officials, including Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mr. Trump approached the back ramp of the C-17 transport plane that had carried the soldiers home. He and the others bowed their heads for a moment.
Then the men walked away from the plane, assembling themselves into a line nearby and looking straight ahead as soldiers began to carry each American flag-draped case from the plane. Several White House officials stood behind Mr. Trump, including Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary, who put her hand on her heart. Also standing nearby was Natalie Harp, the aide who drafts many of the president’s vitriolic social media posts and prints out flattering news articles for Mr. Trump’s review.
A woman wailed as the fourth case was loaded into a waiting transfer van. At several points, Mr. Trump tapped his right hand against his right thigh. When it was all over, the president climbed into an armored car that took him to his waiting plane.
The president is adamant that Americans support the Iran war.
“A poll just came out: Americans don’t want high gasoline prices, but they’re not against the war — that just came out loud and clear,” Mr. Trump said earlier on Wednesday before he traveled to the transfer. He did not specify the poll he was talking about.
In reality, pollsters for months have been tracking growing frustration over the war, including within the Republican Party. According to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last week, only 29 percent of Americans support the conflict. That poll also showed that most Americans do not believe their economic outlook will improve.
As he defended the war and praised the soldiers who had been killed in action, Mr. Trump also told reporters that attending dignified transfers was a difficult thing for him.
“It’s one of the hardest things to do as a president,” Mr. Trump said, adding, “It has to be done.”
The families of the service members who were killed have not talked about their support for the war.
Instead, Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, 30, who was killed while disposing of an Iranian drone in Iraq, was described as a jokester, according to his mother.
Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, who was 19 years old when she was killed by an Iranian missile at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base last week in Jordan, was simply described by her uncle as a “soldier.”
First Lt. Tyler James Feehan, 25, was also killed in that attack. He was described as a mentor to others.
“He believed deeply in the power of military service, especially what it builds in a person: discipline, leadership, character,” his family said in a statement. “Everyone who knew him loved him.”
The family is trying to raise money for a scholarship in Lieutenant Feehan’s name.
Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad, 28, who is also believed to have been killed during that attack, was called a “gentle giant” by her family.
Mr. Trump has released several seething statements promising retribution against Iran for their killings.
“Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over. This directive has been passed on to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Daniel Caine,” he wrote on social media on Monday.
On Tuesday, U.S. Central Command said on social media that the U.S. military had begun striking targets for the 11th straight day, an effort meant to hinder the Iranian military’s threats against commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
As he prepared to leave Dover on Wednesday, Mr. Trump invited several members of Lieutenant Feehan’s family to travel with him aboard Air Force One. The president was on his way to a political rally in Georgia, and a White House official told reporters that he had decided to give them a lift to their home state.
By Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Trump had traded the difficulty of witnessing a dignified transfer for an environment where he felt more comfortable. As he took the stage at his rally in Georgia, Mr. Trump basked in applause and swayed to the music of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA.”
Lieutenant Feehan’s mother, father and uncle were seated in the audience as the president recounted the day, including the family’s awed reaction — “‘Wow!’” the president recalled — when he offered them a ride on his plane.
“This was a person who was going all the way,” Mr. Trump told the grieving family from the stage. “He would have been a general very quickly.”
Show moreJuly 22, 2026, 4:08 p.m. ET“They’re getting hit so hard, and they want to make a deal,” Trump said at an event in Georgia, where he described the war in Iran as a “skirmish.” His comments come as reports show that nearly a dozen U.S. troops serving in the Middle East were wounded severely enough by Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan and other countries this month that they were flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany for treatment. The Defense Department did not disclose the latest rash of casualties in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East until The New York Times reported on injuries from four attacks last week.
July 22, 2026, 4:02 p.m. ETSpeaking at a high school in Georgia, President Trump addressed the Iran war during an event that was billed as a speech on Trump accounts. He told the crowd that, after attending a dignified transfer at Dover Air Force Base today to honor four U.S. service members who were killed in the Iran war, he offered the family of one of the soldiers a ride on Air Force One back to Georgia. The family, Trump recalled, said, “‘Wow, this is something, thank you so much’ — but they’re heartbroken.”
Trump repeated his assertion that the war in Iran was a “skirmish,” claiming that Iran wants to make a deal to end the conflict because “they’re getting hit so hard,” but adding that Tehran isn’t ready to make that deal.
Hours after President Trump threatened to bomb an Iranian bridge or power plant for every attack on a vessel in the Strait of Hormuz, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, wrote on social media, “Our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye.”
“Any aggression against Iran, including our infrastructure, will compel a powerful and decisive response,” he said. “Those who contribute to such aggression, whatever the kind of support, will also be considered as legitimate targets.”
Shirin Hakim and Leili Nikounazar
Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, which coordinates joint operations across Iran’s armed forces, said on Wednesday that the Strait of Hormuz remained closed and warned that any vessel seeking passage must use a designated route and follow procedures previously announced by Tehran.
In a statement carried by Iran’s state broadcaster, the headquarters said that if the United States carried out threats to attack bridges and power plants, Iran would prevent “even a single drop of oil” from being exported from the region and would target oil, gas, electricity and other economic infrastructure across the region.
Repeated American threats, the statement said, would expand the war across the region and beyond.
July 22, 2026, 3:12 p.m. ETBritain has temporarily withdrawn its staff from Iran amid heightened security concerns, its Foreign Office announced on Wednesday, saying the British Embassy will continue to operate remotely.
July 22, 2026, 2:43 p.m. ETAmerican troops, seriously wounded in recent strikes, were flown to Germany for help.
Nearly a dozen U.S. troops were wounded severely enough by Iranian missile and drone attacks in Jordan and other countries this month that they were flown to a U.S. military hospital in Germany for treatment, a U.S. military official said on Wednesday.
The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss operational matters. The Defense Department declined to comment.
Flight tracker websites have identified Air Force C-17 medevac flights from Jordan to Germany in recent days.
The seriously wounded service members are among the roughly 100 American troops that the Defense Department recently said were injured by Iranian attacks since early July.
Most of those service members have returned to duty, the Pentagon said. About 50 of the injuries were suffered in recent attacks on bases in Jordan where U.S. forces are stationed, U.S. officials said.
The Defense Department did not disclose the latest casualties in Jordan and elsewhere in the Middle East until The New York Times reported on injuries from four attacks last week, the last of which, on Friday, killed three soldiers and wounded several others.
A total of 18 U.S. service members have died in the war since it started on Feb. 28, and about 550 have been wounded so far in the conflict. At least 1,700 Iranian civilians have been killed in the war, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, a rights group focused on Iran.
In the days since a fragile truce collapsed this month, the Pentagon has provided little information about the American military strategy after nearly five months of war. The last major Pentagon briefing on the war was in early May.
In statements after airstrikes against Iranian military sites last week, U.S. Central Command said it was retaliating for Iran’s attacks against commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz, never mentioning Iran’s strikes on bases in the region, including in Jordan.
Central Command is not required to release information about injured service members, especially when they quickly return to duty, a U.S. military official said.
Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said that the military had not withheld or misrepresented U.S. casualties in the war. “Claims of concealment are fabrications meant to further distress the American people in the wake of three service members killed in action,” he said in a statement on Monday.
He later posted on social media that the “vast majority” of the nearly 100 casualties since July 7 involved “mild concussions,” and 96 percent of those service members have returned to duty.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a social media post over the weekend that the deaths of the troops in Jordan “only stiffens our resolve.”
Show moreJuly 22, 2026, 1:53 p.m. ETMohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s Parliament and Tehran’s chief negotiator, warned Wednesday that if Iran could not export its oil, no other country in the region would be able to do so.
“The equation of this war is clear: either all or none!” he wrote in a post on X.
Mr. Ghalibaf reiterated Iran’s stance that conditions in the strait would not return to their prewar state. “If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe,” he wrote, adding that the Strait of Hormuz would be secure only without American forces present.
The U.S. military has redirected nine commercial vessels and disabled one since reinstating the naval blockade against Iran on July 14, according to U.S. Central Command.
July 22, 2026, 6:14 a.m. ETThe global oil price jumps to over $95 a barrel as threats intensify.
Oil prices extended their rise on Wednesday as fighting between the United States and Iran continued around the Persian Gulf and threats of a blockade in the Red Sea added to growing uncertainty about the flow of energy from the region.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Wednesday that U.S. forces would continue to attack Iran as long as it tried to exercise control over shipping traffic, which has dwindled in recent weeks. A day earlier, President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatened to deepen the war effort, including by potentially targeting the Houthis.
On Wednesday, Mr. Trump further threatened the Iranians, saying on his social media network that if the country attacks any ship in the Strait of Hormuz, “the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT, including those located next to, or in, the Capital City of Tehran.”
Oil posts another sharp daily gain.
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose 3.3 percent to $94.07 a barrel. Brent has gained about $10 a barrel over the past week after a series of sharp increases, as the fighting in the Middle East has intensified. The cost of crude is up 30 percent since the start of the war.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, climbed 2.3 percent to $86.83 a barrel.
Investors and analysts are focused on several factors that will inform the trajectory of oil prices. They include how many ships are passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman; whether the Houthis will follow through on their threat to restrict traffic in the Bab al-Mandab strait at the southern end of the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used as an alternative to Hormuz; and how much oil China is buying.
The conflict is widening at a vulnerable time for energy markets. Oil stockpiles are smaller than they were when U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran began at the end of February, and Ukrainian attacks have severely damaged Russian refineries, tightening supplies of transportation fuels like diesel.
Price of Brent crude oil
How much the international benchmark costs
Shipping traffic in the Persian Gulf remains low.
Only nine ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, according to the latest data from the maritime data firm Kpler. Traffic in the waterway has dwindled during the upsurge in fighting, with Iran stepping up attacks on ships.
The Houthis, an Iran-backed militia in Yemen, further threatened shipping in the Middle East by announcing a blockade on ships from Saudi ports. After the threat, oil tankers heading toward the Bab al-Mandab strait, at the southern end of the Red Sea, made U-turns and were moving north toward the Suez Canal, according to Kpler. In recent months, Saudi Arabia has redirected millions of barrels per day via the Red Sea instead of the Persian Gulf. If Bab al-Mandab becomes too risky to navigate, shipping oil instead through the Suez Canal can be costlier and logistically more complex.
Two of the world’s biggest shipping firms said on Tuesday that they would impose emergency surcharges to compensate for a surge in fuel prices. France’s CMA CGM said it would impose an emergency fuel surcharge of $75 to $165 on some shipping containers from Aug 1. Maersk of Denmark said it would impose surcharges of 4 to 15 percent on inland shipments for the Nordic region starting on Wednesday.
Daily ship crossings through the Strait of Hormuz
Gasoline prices continue to rise.
Gas prices in the United States rose by 4 cents on Wednesday, to $4.06 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. The national average price at the pump has risen 36 percent since the war began.
Gas prices don’t move in lock step with crude, usually trailing increases or drops by a few days. Fuel markets are especially strained right now because so many of the world’s refineries are offline or producing less after sustaining damage, including in the Persian Gulf and Russia.
The average price of diesel rose to $5.18 a gallon on Wednesday, up about 38 percent since the start of the war.
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Global stocks are mixed ahead of big tech earnings.
The S&P 500 wavered between small gains and losses on Wednesday, ending the day 0.1 percent lower. Investors were awaiting quarterly earnings from Alphabet and Tesla, multitrillion-dollar behemoths that can have a major influence on index movements. They were set to release their financial reports after the close of U.S. trading.
In Europe, the Stoxx 600, an index tracking the region’s largest companies, gained about 0.6 percent.
Stocks in Asia, where countries import vast quantities of oil and gas, were little changed. But currencies across Asia were pressured by the resurgence in oil prices. On Wednesday, the Japanese yen traded at around 163 against the dollar — its weakest level in roughly four decades.
How stocks are trading in the United States
Yan Zhuang and River Akira Davis contributed reporting.
Show moreReporting from Manila