LONDON — When guns fire in the Middle East, the whole world eventually feels it in its wallet. This Monday, that uncomfortable truth hit harder than ever, according to BBC News.
With oil prices rocketing past $100 a barrel, briefly touching a breathtaking $119.50, the G7’s most powerful finance ministers called an emergency meeting to confront an energy crisis born directly from the escalating US-Israeli war with Iran. For ordinary people from London to Tokyo, the numbers on the screen meant one thing: harder times ahead.
The crisis has a geography. The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow ribbon of water between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, carries roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply. Since the war erupted more than a week ago, that passage has effectively choked shut. Millions of barrels of crude and liquefied gas sit stranded in the Gulf, going nowhere, while prices climb with every passing hour.
Markets, which had stayed surprisingly calm in the conflict’s early days, finally lost their nerve. Japan’s Nikkei plunged 5.2%. South Korea’s stock exchange triggered an emergency trading halt to stop panic spreading. London’s FTSE 100 slipped 1.3%, while Germany and France posted similar losses. Only oil company shares, BP and Shell among them, bucked the grim trend, their profits swelling with every crisis barrel.
The G7 meeting is expected to discuss releasing emergency petroleum reserves through the International Energy Agency, a tool last used when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. It would be a dramatic intervention, signaling just how seriously world leaders are taking the threat.
Meanwhile, Iran now led by newly named Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the previous leader, shows no sign of softening. Airstrikes from the US and Israel hit Iranian oil depots over the weekend, while Iran’s own drones targeted Gulf energy infrastructure. Saudi Arabia intercepted two drone waves aimed at a major oilfield.
President Trump brushed off the alarm, calling rising prices “a very small price to pay” for defeating Iran’s nuclear program. But for families already stretched thin, there is nothing small about it.
