WSJ : Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz

Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz
Administration officials assess that forcing the waterway back open would mean extending the military mission

  • President Trump told aides he is willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed.
  • The Strait of Hormuz closure has roiled the global economy, boosting gas prices and causing shortages of key industrial items.
  • Despite President Trump’s desire for a quick end to the war, the U.S. has sent additional military assets to the region.

WASHINGTON—President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.

In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said.

There are also military options the president could decide on, but they are not his immediate priority, they said.

Over the past month, Trump has expressed various opinions in public on how to handle the strait, part of a larger pattern of giving conflicting goals and objectives of the war overall. He has at times threatened to bomb civilian energy infrastructure if the waterway isn’t reopened by a certain date. On other occasions, he has played down the importance of the strait to the U.S. and said its closure is a problem for other nations to solve.

The longer the strait remains closed, the more it will roil the global economy and boost gas prices. Multiple countries, including U.S. allies, are reeling from the downturn in energy supply that once flowed freely through the chokepoint. Industries that rely on items such as fertilizer to grow food or helium to make computer chips are suffering from shortages.

Without a swift return to safe passages, Tehran will continue to threaten world trade until the U.S. and its partners either negotiate a deal or forcibly end the crisis, analysts say.

Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president at the Brookings Institution in Washington, called ending military operations before the strait is open “unbelievably irresponsible.”

The U.S. and Israel started the war together and can’t walk away from the fallout, Maloney said. “Energy markets are inherently global, and there is no possibility of insulating the U.S. from the economic damage that is already occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the strait continues.”

Trump’s desire to end the war quickly is at odds with other moves he is planning to make. This weekend, the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit entered the region. Trump has also ordered elements of the 82nd Airborne and is considering sending another 10,000 ground troops to the Middle East, The Wall Street Journal reported. Meanwhile, he has referred to the war as “an excursion” and “a lovely stay,” yet he is also weighing a complex and risky mission to seize the regime’s uranium, the Journal reported.

On Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that the U.S. was “working towards” normal operations in the strait, but didn’t list it among the core military objectives of targeting Iran’s navy, missiles, defense industry and ability to make a nuclear weapon.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking Monday to Al Jazeera, said the current campaign to complete U.S. military objectives will be finished within weeks.

“Then we’ll be confronted with this issue of the Straits of Hormuz, and it will be up to Iran to decide,” said Rubio, who is also Trump’s national security adviser, “or a coalition of nations from around the world and the region, with the participation of the United States, we’ll make sure that it’s open, one way or the other.”

The Trump administration had planned for the possibility of Iran closing the strait after the first bombs dropped. But once Iran placed mines in the water and threatened to strike tankers, traffic slowed to a trickle.

Senior officials repeatedly waved the problem away as pressure mounted on Washington to handle the situation. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on March 13 told reporters Iran’s actions were a sign of “sheer desperation” and was “something we’re dealing with, we have been dealing with it and don’t need to worry about it.”

To circumvent the problem, Trump increasingly called on shipping companies to take the risk of sailing through the waterway. When that didn’t work, he switched to issuing threats directly at Tehran. Trump last week interpreted Iran’s leadership allowing some ships through as a concession, kick-starting the latest round of diplomacy he hopes could end the war.

But after saying Monday on social media that Iran was now led by a “more reasonable” regime, he threatened to target the country’s electric plants and oil sites—including oil-export hub Kharg Island—“if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business.’”

“President Trump is going to move forward unabated, and he expects the Iranian regime to make a deal with the administration,” Leavitt told reporters.

Current and former officials say they believe the ability of Iran to control the passageway will be blunted as its military assets are diminished.

“Once you’ve achieved those strategic objectives, it naturally follows,” said Rich Goldberg, a former Trump National Security Council official now at Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank. “That is when you would focus on the Strait of Hormuz, because you would have done so much damage to their external threat, and you would have reallocated your military resources to that mission.”

Despite his threats to reopen the waterway, Trump and his team say the strait matters far more to countries in Europe, the Middle East and Asia than to the U.S., insisting it is not vital to America’s energy needs. Top aides in Washington have spent weeks asking allies and partners to plan for negotiations or operations to ensure a fifth of the world’s oil and gas can travel through the strait.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent suggested Monday in a Fox News interview that the U.S. or a multinational group could escort tankers. His comments didn’t signal any urgency to reopen the strait immediately.

“The market is well-supplied, and we are seeing more and more ships go through on a daily basis as individual countries cut deals with the Iranian regime for the time being,” Bessent said. “But over time, the U.S. is going to retake control of the straits, and there will be freedom of navigation, whether it is through U.S. escorts or a multinational escort.”

This month, nearly 40 countries—including the United Kingdom, France and Canada—pledged “our readiness to contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage through the Strait.”

Around 20% of the world’s oil supply is transported through the strait, and in 2024, 84% of crude oil and 83% of liquid natural gas shipped through the strait was bound for Asian markets, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Iran’s grip on the strait led the benchmark price of U.S. oil to close Monday at over $100 a barrel for the first time since 2022, and some financial analysts project it could surge to $200 a barrel if the war causes sustained disruption. to the waterway.

WSJ : Iran War Chokes Off Helium Supply Critical for AI

Iran War Chokes Off Helium Supply Critical for AI
Customers for the gas are being told to expect supply cuts and surcharges as Persian Gulf supplies dry up

The Iran war isn’t just affecting energy supplies. It is also cutting deeply into supplies of the invisible gas that is essential for cooling artificial-intelligence chip-making tools and keeping MRI scanners humming.

The global supply of helium—the natural-gas byproduct better known for keeping party balloons aloft—is being squeezed by a halt in natural-gas exports from Qatar, the source of about a third of the world’s total.

The shortage is straining a market where supplies can’t be switched on quickly, threatening to hamper production of everything from semiconductors to military-drone components and space rockets.

Helium is the second-most-common element in the universe after hydrogen, but it is rare on Earth, where it mainly exists in small concentrations in pockets of natural gas. Energy producers separate it out from methane, nitrogen and other gases, then ship it as a supercooled liquid.

While many chip makers and defense manufacturers won’t immediately feel the shortage, suppliers are already telling some customers to expect supply cuts and surcharges, industry participants said.

Helium users, who mostly lock in supply through long-term contracts, are now scrambling for scarce short-term spot market cargoes, a bidding war that has caused prices to more than double, market watchers say. South Korea, a major chip manufacturer that relies heavily on Qatari supplies, has been approaching U.S. producers for additional volumes of the gas.

“This is the big one that we always feared would happen, it’s the black swan event,” said Cliff Cain, manager of commercial and external affairs at Pulsar, a helium exploration company with projects in Minnesota and Greenland. “It is just going to be a building crescendo of who’s going to be able to get their molecules and who is not.”

Helium is deeply embedded across many modern industries. The gas transfers heat exceptionally well, making it ideal for rapid cooling. Chip makers use it to maintain stable temperatures while etching silicon wafers into advanced semiconductors.

For many current semiconductor cooling applications, helium has no easy substitute. The medical industry uses it to cool the superconducting magnets inside MRI scanners. It supports aerospace technology, including NASA missions, where it is used to purge rocket fuel tanks. It is also key in fiber-optic manufacturing and defense applications.

“The helium shock highlights a deeper vulnerability in the AI build‑out: extreme dependence on a small number of geopolitically exposed nodes,” said Ralf Gubler, research director at S&P Global Energy specializing in industrial gases.

The nonrenewable gas is produced by radioactive decay deep under the earth and escapes into space once released. Last year, the world produced about 190 million cubic meters of helium—enough to fill roughly 76,000 Olympic-size swimming pools.

The disruptions to Qatar’s shipments of liquefied natural gas have directly curtailed helium feedstock. Qatar exports virtually all of its helium via the Strait of Hormuz, the vital commodities superhighway paralyzed by the conflict.

Even if the war ends swiftly and the strait reopens, some of the losses won’t be easily reversed. Qatar said Iranian strikes on its Ras Laffan LNG plant earlier in March caused extensive damage that cut its annual helium exports by 14% and could take up to five years to repair.

Some suppliers are already rationing.

Citing the Qatari outage, U.S. industrial gas supplier Airgas declared a force majeure earlier this month, telling one customer that it would only meet up to half of their normal monthly helium demand, according to a letter to the customer reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Airgas also told the client that it would add a surcharge of $13.50 per hundred cubic feet above the contracted price.

Airgas and its parent company Air Liquide didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Pulsar’s Cain said helium buyers as far apart as India and Brazil have also received force majeure notices in recent days from their suppliers.

Because helium’s industrial uses are so broad, shortages are ricocheting through multiple sectors and countries at once. South Korean officials have warned that a prolonged supply crunch would hurt its output of semiconductors. The country sourced about two-thirds of its helium imports from Qatar last year, according to Fitch Ratings.

In recent days, the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency, an arm of the country’s Trade Ministry, approached U.S. helium suppliers about supply options in response to rising demand from Korean companies, according to an email reviewed by the Journal.

Taiwan faces similar risks because it relies on Qatar for a large chunk of its helium supplies, Fitch said. In Germany, chemical industry group VCI said the conflict was raising concerns about supply bottlenecks in raw materials, including helium.

The U.S., the world’s largest producer of the gas, is more insulated for now, though analysts say a prolonged Qatari outage would hit it hard, too.

Chip companies keep inventories of helium on hand. There were also shipments en route to Asia when the conflict began. Both will help delay the onset of a shortage.

Chip maker GlobalFoundries, which has a manufacturing footprint across the U.S., Europe, and Asia, said it is actively monitoring developments in the Middle East but doesn’t anticipate a near-term impact. “The situation remains fluid,” the company said.

One problem is that helium, particularly in the supercooled liquid form used for transport, has an effective shelf life.

Liquid helium continually absorbs heat and gradually turns back into a gas, building pressure in its container. If the maximum pressure is exceeded, the helium escapes—a process known in industry parlance as “boil-off.” Most containers have a hold time of between 35 and 48 days, said Phil Kornbluth, president of U.S.-based consulting firm Kornbluth Helium Consulting, before too much of the gas starts being lost.

Hundreds of specialized cryogenic containers—each costing around $1 million—are now stuck in the Middle East, Kornbluth said.

Companies are already preparing for a bigger supply crunch ahead. Fitch said major Asian chip makers have conducted comprehensive assessments of helium inventories.

Anish Kapadia, founder of U.K.-based consulting firm AKAP Energy, said clients are inundating him with calls about impending impacts, adding that gas suppliers are likely to give priority to chip makers and medical imaging.

“The first victims are party balloons: you can quite easily allocate less there and deal with a few angry parents,” Kapadia said. “But clearly when you take a third of global supply off the market overnight, there’s going to be a significant impact across the board.”

>>> US After Hours Summary: SPCE +14.7%, PRGS +1.5% higher on earnings; PEPG -48

After Hours Summary: SPCE +14.7%, PRGS +1.5% higher on earnings; PEPG -48% under pressure after Phase 2 study results; PHR -21.3% sharply lower after earnings

After Hours Gainers:

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: SPCE +14.7%, PRGS +1.5%

Companies trading higher in after hours in reaction to news: MKC +2.3% (Unilever PLC nearing deal to form $60 bln food company with McCormick (MKC), according to WSJ), UL +1.6% (Unilever PLC nearing deal to form $60 bln food company with McCormick (MKC), according to WSJ), ARRY +1.5% (opening of the new headquarters of APA Solar), RKLB +0.5% (receives regulatory approval to acquire Mynaric), SPIR +0.3% (launches ten satellites aboard SpaceX's Transporter-1), AXP +0.2% (named official payments partner of the NFL), STNG +0.1% (to sell two 2015 built scrubber-fitted MR product tankers for $35 mln per vessel), SLF +0.1% (completes remaining equity interest purchases of BGO and Crescent Capital)

After Hours Losers:

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to earnings/guidance: PHR -21.3%

Companies trading lower in after hours in reaction to news: PEPG -48% (topline results from lowest dose (5 mg/kg) MAD cohort in the ongoing Phase 2 FREEDOM2 Study), SVC -16.8% (stock offering), PALI -5.6% (topline data from phase 1b clinical study of PALI-2108), VRT -0.5% (to invest $50 mln to expand manufacturing presence in Ohio), FDS -0.3% (strategic partnership with Finster AI to power new AI banking platform), NFLX -0.2% (looking to expand its NFL package to four games, according to WSJ)

>>> Uber is buying Berlin startup Blacklane to bolster its ‘Elite’ offering

Uber is buying Berlin startup Blacklane to bolster its ‘Elite’ offering

Uber is buying Berlin-based startup Blacklane, which provides on-demand, black-car chauffeur services, as the ride-hail giant expands deeper into luxury and executive travel services.

It’s a notable exit for Blacklane, which was founded in 2011 and has raised more than $100 million to date from rental car company Sixt, Mercedes-Benz, and ALFAHIM, a conglomerate in the UAE.

Uber said the acquisition still needs regulatory approvals, but expects it to close by the end of this year. The two companies didn’t disclose financial terms of the deal.

The acquisition comes just a few weeks after Uber announced the launch of Uber Elite, which combines a chauffeur service with a number of luxury offerings like in-vehicle amenities, airport meet-and-greets, and 24/7 phone support. Uber Elite is starting small, in just Los Angeles and San Francisco, with New York City on the horizon. Blacklane operates in major cities across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, South America, and North America.

The Information : Chinese Humanoid Maker Agibot Rolls Out 10,000th Mass-Produced

Chinese Humanoid Maker Agibot Rolls Out 10,000th Mass-Produced Unit
China’s robotics sector is ramping up its mass production of humanoids by taking advantage of the country’s vast supply chain and global demand.

Chinese robot maker Agibot said on Monday that the number of humanoids it has manufactured just reached 10,000, as the Shanghai-based startup accelerates the expansion of its output.

The new milestone comes just three months after the company announced the rollout of its 5,000th unit in December. Prior to that, it took AgiBot about a year to go from 1,000 units to 5,000 units.

This is the latest example of how China’s robotics sector is ramping up its production of humanoids by taking advantage of the country’s vast supply chain. Unitree, another major Chinese robot maker, said in a recent filing for an initial public offering that it sold 3,551 humanoids in the first nine months of 2025, up from 410 units in all of 2024.

Of the 10,000 humanoid robots Agibot has manufactured, a significant portion is already active in real-world environments, in industries such as logistics, retail, hospitality and education, the company said. Apart from China, the company said it has sold “a substantial number” of its humanoids in Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

“As our supply chain matures and manufacturing standardizes, we are seeing a pivot from small-scale, niche applications to robust, large-scale commercial demand,” Agibot chief technology officer Peng Zhihui said in a statement.

WSJ : The Reclusive 94-Year-Old Who Just Sold His Food Empire for $29 Billion

The Reclusive 94-Year-Old Who Just Sold His Food Empire for $29 Billion
Nathan Kirsh built Restaurant Depot from one warehouse in Brooklyn in 1976 and after getting his business start in South Africa

  • Sysco is acquiring Jetro Restaurant Depot for approximately $29.1 billion, including debt.
  • Nathan “Natie” Kirsh, the 94-year-old founder, built the company into a leading cash-and-carry brand.
  • Restaurant Depot operates 166 stores across 35 states and generated $16.1 billion in revenue last year.

Behind the multibillion deal for Jetro Restaurant Depot is its 94-year-old founder who amassed billions by turning a Brooklyn warehouse into a U.S. food empire.

Nathan “Natie” Kirsh founded Restaurant Depot in 1976 as Jetro Cash & Carry, and built the company into a leading cash-and-carry brand that dominates the restaurant-supply market. Restaurant Depot operates 166 stores across 35 states and generated about $16 billion in revenue last year.

“We literally have no competition,” Kirsh told a class at the London Business School in 2011. Kirsh still holds a majority stake in the warehouse retailer.

The sale to food-distributor Sysco SYY -15.01%decrease; red down pointing triangle, for roughly $29.1 billion including debt, caps an unlikely career for the low-profile Kirsh and his food business.

Born in 1932 in South Africa to Lithuanian Jewish immigrants who ran a malt business, Kirsh ventured into grain milling and then distribution, according to news reports.

He entered wholesale distribution in 1970 when he acquired Moshal Gevisser, a South African distributor experimenting with a cash-and-carry model. Apartheid laws prevented white-owned businesses from operating directly in Black townships. Kirsh used the company to supply goods to Black shopkeepers.

By the mid-1970s, Kirsh was looking abroad. “I had really negative views on the future of South Africa,” he later said, explaining his decision to explore opportunities in the U.S.

During a visit to New York, he studied how small retailers sourced goods and saw an opening. “I went to see how these little stores in New York got their supplies, and I really thought it was very rudimentary and not very efficient,” he said during the talk in 2011.

Kirsh founded Jetro Cash & Carry in Brooklyn in 1976, targeting independent store owners seeking low prices and immediate access to inventory. The concept echoed the cash-and-carry model he had refined in South Africa.

“It took us years to understand that it wasn’t us that had to learn how to run our business, it was our customer who had to change in order to take the benefits he could get from our business,” he said, in his 2011 talk, about the early years.

He expanded steadily, and in 1994 acquired Restaurant Depot, which focused on independent restaurants. The two brands later operated as sister companies under Jetro Holdings, building a nationwide network of warehouse stores serving small food businesses.

The company grew into one of the largest cash-and-carry wholesalers in the country, supplying independent restaurants, caterers and food retailers. It is now helmed by Executive Chairman Stanley Fleishman.

Kirsh, who built much of his wealth through Jetro Holdings and related real-estate investments, has kept a relatively low public profile even as his business expanded.

In addition to Jetro Holdings, Kirsh’s real-estate holdings include a London skyscraper called Tower 42, according to Forbes, which has pegged his wealth at $7.3 billion.

FT : Iran could emerge from the war stronger and more dangerous

Iran could emerge from the war stronger and more dangerous
The Islamic republic aims to set up a toll booth on the Strait of Hormuz. It may succeed

Donald Trump has a perverse genius for driving American adversaries to discover new forms of leverage over the US. His trade war with China persuaded Beijing to exploit its domination of rare earths and critical minerals, forcing the US to reduce its tariffs.

In a similar fashion, Iran has now finally carried through on a longstanding threat and in effect closed the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran, like Beijing, will have been delighted to discover how quickly it can inflict economic pain on the west.

Iran’s exploitation of its control over the strait means that the Islamic republic can now aspire to do far more than merely survive the US-Israeli assault. It has a real prospect of emerging from the war in a strengthened international position.

There is no doubt that Iran has suffered some savage blows. The country’s leader and many of his most senior advisers were killed on the first day of the conflict. Its ships, missile launchers and command centres have been struck repeatedly. The Iranian economy is in deep trouble and inflation is rampant.

But Iran is not merely fighting on. It has demonstrated that it can inflict real damage on its Gulf neighbours, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE — placing big question marks over their long-term futures. Crucially, the Strait of Hormuz also provides the Islamic republic with a significant potential future revenue stream that could prove extremely valuable.

Iran has charged a reported $2mn each to allow ships safe passage through the strait. In normal times, about 140 ships a day make the journey. So a crude calculation suggests that, if Iran succeeds in setting up a toll booth on the strait, it could add billions of dollars a month to the state coffers.

Marco Rubio warned last week of the danger that Iran will seek to charge ships passing through the strait. The US secretary of state said that this would be illegal and unacceptable. He is right on both counts. The question is: what can the US do about it?

The discouraging answer is that there may be no military solution to this problem, short of regime change in Tehran. The US is currently dispatching ground troops to the region. But the seizure of Kharg Island, which Trump has floated in a recent interview with the FT, would not necessarily solve the strait problem.

In fact, western military planners are very pessimistic about the chances of reopening the strait by military means alone. The geography of the area and the technology available to Iran — including drones that can be operated many miles from the shoreline — mean that even naval escorts cannot guarantee the safety of commercial traffic.

That leaves a negotiated agreement with Iran as the most realistic option. But Iran is likely to demand a very high price. The Iranian regime has its eye on potentially game-changing future revenues — as well as a means of dispensing favours or punishments to countries all over the world.

Trump, the self-styled master negotiator, is floundering. He recently admitted that he finds the Iranian negotiating style very “strange”. The previous week the US president had suggested that “me and the ayatollah” might jointly manage the strait — which some have interpreted as a bid to split potential tolls with Tehran. But the Iranians seem uninterested.

Iran’s neighbours are horrified at the idea of Tehran emerging from the war with practical control over Gulf energy exports as well as a new stream of income. There is much speculation that the UAE and Saudi Arabia could join the conflict rather than accept that outcome. But those countries are also well aware that Iranian strikes on their oil installations or desalination plants could wreak long-term havoc on their economies and societies. They may ultimately decide that paying protection money to Iran is a better option than escalation.

Asian nations — which are the main markets for Gulf energy exports and are not in Iran’s line of fire — may also consider paying up. US allies, such as Japan and the EU, will know that paying off Iran would provoke American wrath. But European relations with the Trump administration are already so bad — and the president so erratic — that the Europeans might risk it, rather than accepting permanently higher energy prices or going back to buying Russian oil and gas.

Of course, there are still many “known unknowns”, to quote Donald Rumsfeld, an architect of the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The intervention of US land forces would be a dramatic escalation. It is possible that the social and economic pressures within Iran will eventually cause the regime to implode. But, so far, it looks remarkably resilient.

Some of those who detest Trump, Israel or Saudi Arabia will enjoy the sight of the Islamic republic turning the tables on its enemies. But that is very short-sighted. The Iranian regime has sponsored violent Islamist groups across the Middle East and massacred its own people in the streets — as well as providing vital support for Russia in its war on Ukraine. If it emerges from this war embittered and emboldened, that will be bad news for global security, the world economy — and the Iranian people themselves. Unfortunately, that currently looks like a plausible outcome.