President Trump ordered the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to provide political-risk insurance and financial guarantees for commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.
He also said the U.S. Navy could begin escorting tankers “if necessary” and “as soon as possible.”
The plan is meant to restart maritime traffic after Iran’s attacks and threats helped shut down the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway that carries about one-fifth of global oil and gas flows.
The market took the news the way a drowning man takes sight of a rope: gratefully, but without assuming the shore is close.
The Dow, down as much as 1,200 points intraday Tuesday, finished down 403. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq clawed back most of their losses. Gains extended in early trading today.
Brent retreated from about $85 to roughly $81, while the broader shipping crisis remained unresolved.
Insurance and naval escorts may calm screens in New York, but reopening Hormuz requires more than a presidential flourish and a few forms from Washington.
A bevy of tankers remain stranded for a fifth day. Light, fast Iranian naval boats are still a threat. The skies overhead are bereft of commercial aircraft. The U.S. plan will require a great international effort and may arrive too late to prevent a broader energy shock if attacks continue.
In other words, the White House offered a temporary backstop. And it worked, a little.
In the meantime, the market still has concerns in the Japanese bond market, capital rotation out of the AI trade and cockroaches in the private credit market to contend with.
We’ll be discussing those issues in the weekly livestream for Grey Swan Trading Fraternity members at 3 p.m. ET today. Our Portfolio Director, Andrew Packer, will cover a recently closed SPY put option that provided a positive return, and discuss where the markets are trending now.
Tehran Whispers While Publicly Posturing
Iran’s surviving leadership is now speaking in two voices.
According to a New York Times account, operatives from Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence signaled through a third country that they were open to talks with the CIA about ending the war.
Publicly, Tehran has projected defiance and refused negotiations with Trump. Privately, the line appears less theatrical. Negotiator-in-chief Steve Witkoff is treating the overture with caution. Israel is urging the U.S. to ignore it while the military campaign continues.
Iran’s leadership structure is sufficiently disordered that even the question of who can actually commit the country to a ceasefire has become part of the problem.
This is what “kinetic decapitation” strategy looks like after the first wave: public certainty, private confusion, and no reliable clerk left to stamp the paperwork.
The war is already producing the sort of split-screen politics that often precede a bargaining phase.
The Kobeissi Playbook, Without the Drumroll
The Kobeissi Letter has spent the last year mapping a pattern in Trump’s conflicts, including his tariff gambits. The pattern is useful when you strip out the marketing varnish and keep the mechanics.
We pause for an unsolicited PSA. The Kobeissi Letter has been instructive in helping parse the geopolitical moves of the Trump Great Reset strategy. (Source: Kobeissi on X)
First comes public pressure: threats, deadlines, and repeated invitations to “make a deal.”
Then comes visible positioning: armadas, reviews, investigations, airspace restrictions, or troop movements that make the threat so costly as to be believable.
If the target does not fold, Trump tends to move late on a Friday, after cash equity markets close and before full price discovery can turn into a three-ring circus.
Then the risk premium begins to spread: oil jumps, equities break, bond traders start measuring duration risk, and the first round of dip buyers discovers that the man still in the White House enjoys a second round.
The language then hardens.
Trump talks as if he can keep the pressure on indefinitely, even when prolonged conflict runs counter to his own priorities on inflation, gasoline, and political optics.
After that, markets begin to price something longer than a weekend flare-up.
Only then do the first conditional de-escalation signals usually begin to appear — references to talks, terms, frameworks, or compliance.
If nothing structural breaks first, the story often ends where it began: with a deal, a victory lap, and a violent repricing as risk premium comes out of the market faster than it went in.
The Kobeissi framework does not explain every conflict. But it will help you interpret the frenetic news stories and endless vapid commentaries you’ll hear on cable news and over social media.
Just like your tuckus, the saying goes, everyone has one. Adam Kobeissi does us a favor and connects the playbook to a coherent investment strategy. We say this without having a marketing agreement or even any contact, really, with the Kobeissi team. We just like their work.
For Swan Dive readers, the useful part is the sequence. Pressure first. Positioning second. Shock third. Repricing fourth. Conditional language later. That sequence has shown up in tariffs, legislative spats, geopolitics and military strategy in Venezuela… and now Iran.
Ecuador Sits on the Same Board
Less obvious than the glare from the Middle East, the U.S. is engaged in another operation in South America. U.S. and Ecuadorean forces have now launched joint operations against drug trafficking inside Ecuador.
The U.S. Southern Command and Ecuador’s government are both keeping operational details close to the vest.
On paper, this is a narco-terror story. In practice, it sits on the same China Risk board as everything else. Ecuador matters because China has spent years extending credit, financing infrastructure, and tying debt relief and trade to oil and mineral flows.
The U.S. is answering with security cooperation, intelligence access, and a louder military presence in a country where Beijing has already built economic leverage.
One side offers loans and trade agreements. The other offers guns, surveillance and an anti-cartel flag.
That is the Latin American version of the same competition now playing out in the Gulf and over AI infrastructure.
The point is not that Ecuador and Hormuz are equivalent. The point is that Washington is now contesting Chinese influence at the loading dock, the base perimeter, the chip stack and the shipping lane at the same time.
And the Empire of Debt stretches itself a bit more thinly…
Dollar 2.0 Wants the Bill on the President’s Desk
Through it all, Trump has been stamping his feet over the Clarity Act. The same strategic instinct Mr. Kobeissi describes above has been visible in digital assets – the gateway to Dollar 2.0:
Trump is pressing for passage of the Clarity Act by arguing that the U.S. cannot afford to let crypto infrastructure drift overseas, particularly toward China.
CoinDesk reported this week that Trump has attacked major banks for undercutting his crypto agenda and blocking market-structure legislation that would let stablecoins and digital-asset firms compete more directly for customer balances and yield.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent wants digital-asset legislation on Trump’s desk this spring, saying federal rules would steady markets and give investors greater confidence.
As we’ve outlined in our Grey Swan Live! conversations with both Mark Jeftovic and Ian King, the President’s signature on the act will shine a bright green light on the recommendations in the Dollar 2.0 picks in your special report – those that have been unfairly maligned and stymied by the legislative brick wall they’ve run into.
The lobbying fight remains the same one we’ve been describing for months: banks want to protect deposit franchises; crypto firms want room to offer higher-yield alternatives and build the next payment rails. That’s what we want, too.
On The Geopolitical Board This Morning
The board this morning is crowded.
Trump is offering war insurance and naval escorts to restart commercial traffic through Hormuz.
Tankers are still waiting. Iranian intelligence operatives reportedly floated a backchannel to the CIA while the public line from Tehran remained defiant. U.S. troops are working with Ecuador against narco-terror groups in a country where Chinese money still carries weight.
And the White House continues to push digital-asset legislation as part of a broader competition with Beijing over who owns the next layer of financial infrastructure.
The ships still need to move. The insurance still needs to be written. The chips still need to be controlled. And the men in dark suits are still trying to turn all of it into leverage.
But that is enough for one Wednesday. It’s also my birthday today, so… cheers!
~ Addison
P.S. Thank you if you joined us on Friday for a special Grey Swan Live! from inside the Rarcoa Vault in Chicago. The reserved Silver Eagle set we had reserved was quite popular, and just a few more remain.
Grey Swan Live! returns to its regular time this week, 2 p.m. ET on Thursday.
John Robb, author of Brave New War and Grey Swan Investment Fraternity contributor, joins us for a discussion on the war with Iran, how it’s being fought, and what it means for the dollar and other assets.
With market volatility on the rise and a new set of global challenges arising from this conflict, you won’t want to miss out on this week’s Grey Swan Live!
Robb’s expertise on network warfare is central to understanding the Trump strategy for disrupting operations by killing 40 top Iranian leaders. In a globally connected tech economy in the 21st century, the strategies and weapons of warfare are evolving rapidly.
