<p>The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has already rattled the global economy. Gas prices have jumped 30% to a three-year high, oil is surging, tankers are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz and refineries across the region are under attack. Stock markets from London to Tokyo are tumbling, and hopes of interest rate cuts in the UK and US are fading fast.</p><p>So how serious is this economic shock? What happens if the conflict lasts weeks, as Donald Trump has suggested? And is Rachel Reeves’s newly claimed fiscal headroom about to disappear as energy prices spike?</p><p>Matt Frei speaks to our economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi, and to Dr Neil Quilliam, a leading Middle East energy policy and geopolitics specialist at Chatham House. They explain how this war is reverberating through global markets, the risks to supply routes, the inflation threat, and how governments and central banks might respond.</p>

The Fourcast

Channel 4 News

Middle East at war: will conflict lead to global economic collapse?

MAR 3, 202631 MIN
The Fourcast

Middle East at war: will conflict lead to global economic collapse?

MAR 3, 202631 MIN

Description

<p>The war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has already rattled the global economy. Gas prices have jumped 30% to a three-year high, oil is surging, tankers are stuck in the Strait of Hormuz and refineries across the region are under attack. Stock markets from London to Tokyo are tumbling, and hopes of interest rate cuts in the UK and US are fading fast.</p><p>So how serious is this economic shock? What happens if the conflict lasts weeks, as Donald Trump has suggested? And is Rachel Reeves’s newly claimed fiscal headroom about to disappear as energy prices spike?</p><p>Matt Frei speaks to our economics correspondent Helia Ebrahimi, and to Dr Neil Quilliam, a leading Middle East energy policy and geopolitics specialist at Chatham House. They explain how this war is reverberating through global markets, the risks to supply routes, the inflation threat, and how governments and central banks might respond.</p>