Main developments
Brent crude settled 4.2 per cent higher at $112.57 a barrel — its highest closing price since July 2022 — after Donald Trump’s decision to give Iran a 10-day extension to open the Strait of Hormuz failed to allay fears over global energy supplies.
In a Truth Social post late on Thursday extending the deadline until April 6, Trump said talks with Tehran to end the war were “going very well”.
The increase in oil hit stocks. The S&P 500 dropped 1.7 per cent to its lowest since August and chalked up its biggest weekly drop since October. The Nasdaq Composite fell 2.1 per cent.
The US expects the war against Iran to last another two to four weeks, secretary of state Marco Rubio told his G7 partners.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps said three container ships were turned back from attempting to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Military strikes continued on Friday, as Israel hit Tehran, and Gulf countries faced more barrages from Iran.
Trump says US did not know Iran could fire a missile 2,700 miles
Donald Trump said the US was unaware that Iran had the capability to fire a missile 2,700 miles.
“They didn’t say they had that. Nobody knew they had that,” the US president said at a Saudi Arabian investor conference in Miami on Friday, referring to Tehran’s recent attempt to strike the US and British military base at Diego Garcia, an island in the Indian Ocean.
“So we learned a lot,” Trump said.
Trump urges Saudi crown prince to normalise diplomatic ties with Israel
Donald Trump urged Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to normalise diplomatic ties with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords, the landmark foreign policy of the US president’s first term that led to several Middle Eastern countries formally recognising Israel.
“The Middle East will be transformed” as a result of the US and Israel’s nearly four-week war there, Trump told Saudi Arabian investors at a conference in Miami on Friday night.
“I hope you’re going to be getting into the Abraham Accords, finally,” he said, addressing the crown prince. “Will you please go back and explain it’s time now?”
The prince has consistently expressed his disapproval of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Saudi Arabian officials have said it would not be possible to normalise the kingdom’s relationship with Israel without concrete steps towards Palestinian statehood, which Israel categorically rejects.