Transcription
Hey Jeffrey, how are you?
>> I'm doing well. Exciting times again.
>> It is exciting times, and of course you're doing well. Oil price is starting to pick up again. Um, it's uh, I just was just checking. I think it's at 74, $74, because we just got news, and I'm sure you saw it was only a few minutes ago that the Houthis have attacked Saudi. They fired missiles and drones at the Saudi airport after the Saudis attacked the Sana airport. And that's hours after Trump blockaded Iran and announced a fee for all non-Iranian ships. Iranian ships can't go through. Non-Iranian ships have to pay 20% fee. So I don't know if the market is taking that seriously. They think Trump is bluffing. That would be my question to you. And um, the Iranians, there's been reports Iranians are planning to to formally withdraw from the MOU. Not sure if that means anything. All right. WTI is up to $75 a barrel now. It was below $70 a few days ago. Um, thoughts?
>> To be expected. I think, as you and I were talking a week ago, um, two weeks ago, just a matter of time before this happened, and you know, because it was, you know, I think we termed it the memoranding of misunderstanding, and so those misunderstandings took the best of both sides, and we're back at it. Now the difference this time around, there's no talk on, uh, you know, basically Trump, he's playing this as if the Iranians are going to back down, and the Iranians are playing this as if the Americans are going to back down. Um, I, you know, the endgame here, you know, I think it's, you know, both have probably recharged, and, you know, from my understanding, there was container ships, wasn't a lot of oil ships going in that got in, it was container ships bringing in military hardware. Um, so you know, it's um, I think it's in the difference this time around: your inventories are a lot lower, you're out of refining capacity, situation in Russia has deteriorated, um, you know, the fact that the market is blowing this off is just, you know, it's barely moving, and by the way, if he was serious about the 20, 20%, market should be up 20% because the marginal cost of a barrel of oil just went up that much. Um, so, uh, it's a, you know, the market doesn't take any of this seriously, which I think is what's being reflected in both the equity market as well as the oil market. But, um, for those of us who follow this, this, this is serious. This is not a, there the ability to back out of this thing, I think, is going to be really difficult.
>> That's a good point you've made. So, what would you, what would a market reaction look like if Trump was genuinely serious about the 20% fee as in a long-term plan for the Strait of Hormuz? What would happen to the markets?
>> Oh, I mean, because that basically, you know, depends on, you know, what, what the, the value of the oil is in, in the Gulf. But the question is, how much does it get taken out of the price in the Gulf and how much of it comes out of the consumer? It's going to be a little, 20% is huge, cuz you figure the, the 2 million U barrel fee that the Iranians was charging is a dollar per barrel. Call it a 70, $80 barrel. That's, you know, 1.2, 1.3%. 20% is just absurdly high. Um, so yeah, I don't think the market is, is believing that, you know, this is, that this is real, that the, that this has any real legs. Otherwise, it'd be pricing in something very differently right now.
>> Can you give me a price prediction? If, if it is serious, what prices would we be looking at? Just speculating. So, let's say he's actually serious and doesn't make [ __ ] up, not make [ __ ] up, make threats and walk them back on a, on an almost weekly basis. If that wasn't the case, if that was another president making this announcement formally, what, what would you expect the oil price to be?
>> It should jump at least 10, 10, 15, yeah, 85 or something like that. If they believe that there, I think, I almost everybody I talked to in the market believe there's another taco here. I think you're really struggling to find another taco here. Um, and um, so um, I think, you know, because at this point the, the taco options have all been exhausted, and in this time it's far more aggressive.
>> Um, what about the attack by the Houthis on Saudi? How significant is that?
>> Trump's announcement?
>> Very significant, because what it's telling you is the proxies are now moving. We haven't seen the proxies move yet. And so, you know, you know, this starts opening up to problems in the Red Sea at Yanbu, um, which is the, the Saudis' primary export terminal right now. Um, and it also, you know, opens up, you know, issues in, you know, other parts of the world where proxies, remember when this all started, the asymmetric doctrine really is what um, Iran is all about. You know, it invented the proxies. It's invented this asymmetry warfare, and so it's finally executing on it in a way that we hadn't seen them do before. This is all, I think, very significant. Um, and in terms of thinking about um, you know, to the oil market, we, we're now seeing hostilities that could be coming out of Yemen and hence the Red Sea, which is just opening up a whole another avenue to this conflict that didn't used to be here.
>> Such a stupid war. Jeffrey, I know I've said it so many times on this chat. It's just such a stupid war.
>> Yeah. I mean, everything was fine at on January, you know, and now we're in an environment that's, it's far worse than what it was before. But, but, but I, I wouldn't, you know, this conflict is part of a much broader conflict that goes all the way back, you know, to the beginning of this decade, you know, that just been characterized by issues around deglobalization and, you know, fragmentation of governments and of nations around the world, and so I, I would view this as a, it's a continuation of, you know, I'd say it really started heating up with, you know, Russia's invasion of, of Ukraine going back in, you know, you think about it, it was in October '21 when this really started to happen.
>> True. True. This is a more just a general shift in the markets or the global economy. Um, which I think is, is a more important long-term trend that we're seeing. And by the way, they're all t, I mean, when we, when we became bullish on commodities in October of 2020, made the call for a structural long-term bull market, super cycle, whatever you want to call it. And there were three pillars to that argument. First and foremost was the war on free trade or globalization, deglobalization. Um, and when we've seen it fragment into, you know, military budgets ballooning in Europe, defense spending all over the world, you see it with the split between the China block and the US block. Uh, and that story just continues to gain momentum. And, you know, last week we saw the Ukrainians going deep into Russia, like 1300 miles or kilometers, and hitting with perfect precision um, refineries. So that, that, that story, this deglobalization story, the other big one was electrification and the, the way you get around all this is localize everything and bring it back home and electrify. But the big, the big one that I, that I think is underneath all of this is, is income inequality and redistribution needs. Um, which just makes the politics, whether it's here in Europe or in the United States, and, you know, he, I think it was Paul Tudor Jones who was just, going talking about Elon Musk and calling it a, um, calling it a, um, a, um, a French Revolution moment, I think was the term he used today, and, you know, and I think that all of this is just part of.
>> Paul Jones said that?
>> Yeah, something along those lines, and I thought it was, you spot on, French, the French Revolution moment. Um, you know.
>> What was he, what was he referring to, if you don't mind, is any specific event?
>> I think is, is the income inequality, people are using, using Elon Musk as the, the poster child of, you know, the let them eat cake moment. Um, I didn't listen to the whole thing in, in, in, in total, but I think the, the reality is these are all simmering issues that need to be addressed and are not being addressed and will continue to percolate, and they hit commodities in a particular strong manner because when you're deglobalizing, you have to build out new supply chains. You're going to onshore stuff and bring it back home. You need energy security of your, of your supply chains, and then you need to spend a lot of money on defense. All of that is lots of commodity spend, metals and energy and everything like that. And so on that, then if we turn to the electrification, and if you think about why do you want to electrify? You want to electrify because you want to bring it home, because everybody has their own sunshine. Everybody has their own um, wind, and everybody can get nuclear because it's small little, you know, you're not having big long supply chain. So it localizes ev, everything. And then you think about redistribution. Why do you need the redistribution? Globalization made these individuals very poor in some of these countries because of, we're basically capital in the United States and Europe did incredibly well. Labor did not. And so by bringing it onshore and bringing it home, it brings back that whole point. They're all really the same story. I want to deglobalize because I want to protect my, my workers. My workers were the ones that suffered from deglobalization. And this is what happened, you know, in, in the, the leadup to the Second World War. It was the same thing. The, you instead of being the US, it was the UK. It's the same story just being replayed again and again. They're all, that they all boil down to the exact same thing. Um, you know, bring it home, localize, protect my, my manufacturing, my workers, and by bringing it to my country, I make them safe. And so I don't think this is, this is not, and, and if you think about um, you know, the bookends, you know, we had Gulf War I, one 1991, in which the Soviet Union collapsed and so it was only thing superpower left was the US, and then you had the United States with a monster victory factory in Iraq. Um, you know, I think it's, it's Robert Pave who you have on here. He makes this point. They brought 10,000 body bags and only used 147. Um, it was a massive victory. This time around, it's the rise of China, and the US didn't have that kind of victory in that it had in 1991 this time around. And so, we're looking at those are the bookends that that period of globalization is over with. Um, so we're going to see more and more of this.
>> I'm just going to check a quick statistic. What percentage of ships coming out of Hormuz, was just thought of it as you're speaking, when you mentioned China, excluding ones coming from Iran go to China? So I see that fee that uh, Trump just announced, is he just going to be mainly taxing China out of all? You probably know the statistic, approximately 30%. So a third of ships going out of the Strait of Hormuz, excluding Iranian oil, um, about a quarter of them to a third of them are uh, going to China. So just Trump just said, "I'm going to tax China 20% on oil, oil coming out of the strait."
>> You start thinking like, this is, you keep seeing those indicators that this is really about China. This is him giving the middle finger to China, trying to, you know, gain leverage over China, give them something, take something, threaten them with something. It just feels that way.
>> Oh, 100%. China was definitely the target on this. But the problem though, as you pointed out, it's only 30% or so. It's not all of it. Um, a good chunk of.
>> The rest of the, the rest of the allies that he doesn't really care about.
>> Yeah. But you're right. The, the primary target here was um, is, and was um, was China. So, I think it's significant.
>> Um, how worried are you? It's kind of political question before we go back to the economic impact. Could have. How worried are you? Actually, no. A more specific question. Is he, do you think that fee is more likely him just trying to pressure Iran to concede on them charging a fee in the Strait of Hormuz, or is it laying the groundwork for a long-term structure to maybe have the US charge a fee in the southern part and Iran up in the northern part? That second scenario is pretty scary.
>> I, I, I don't want to speculate on, on what the motivation be behind that. I think, you know, the, I think that, that, that ultimately, because he is t, that Trump is targeting the Iranian oil. He wants to make it so expensive nobody will do it.
>> Um, that, you know, they then it's not forced to, he's not forced. But the bottom line is that this time around they're not going to lift that blockade until this is over. They're going to try to take, take Iran to the mat. The market seem really complac, I'd use the word complacent. I know it's gone up a fair bit in the last few days, but still considering where we are and how significant the breaches are of the MOU. Let's just even put the MOU aside. Trump said it's dead. The Iranians are indicating they could be pulling out officially from it. So, one can argue the MOU is no longer there. Um, they have, you know, the back and forth fighting um, has resumed and intensified significantly. There's a blockade there. We're almost back to the status quo of what we were. Iran attacked all the Gulf, including Saudi and the UAE in the last 48 hours. So, it just doesn't seem too different from the, the, you know, the, the peak of the war, just less intense. But energy prices just seem completely detached for the average person looking at this.
>> A lot of ships have gone through, or what, what am I missing?
>> No, I think the mark, the market's numb to it. You know, they've, they've been, they've, they were taught that in the first round of this, energy did not, you didn't have the catastrophic shortages and all the problems, by the way they occurred for parts of the world that they don't see, um, like Sri Lanka and places like that, and India and Pakistan, they felt it. Um, the, what I think they fail is they've taken that lesson of, I called it abundance illusion, and have applied it this time around, and I think the only thing it's going to change it is they're going to have to see with their own eyes that this is a very serious shortage. And by the way, the product shortage, you have lines in Russia, and Russia's, you and I, in fact you pointed at Russia's importing um, gasoline from India right now, her jet fuel from Japan.
>> It's just a matter of time before this spreads around the rest of the world. And the other thing too about products, and you've lost the product export. It's out of places like the Gulf. You've lost them in China. They're, I actually heard this morning the teapots are cranking back up. So they'll consume a lot of that oil and try, they've released the product export bans at least partially. Um, and you lost the Russian. There's no SPR for product. So we have product shortages. You know, we've drained the SPRs on, on the oil side, and now we're in round two of this um, with that, at least it's going to last another, you know, if you, if you look at, let's take, you know, the fact of the matter is that everything got emptied out of there, you can go as long as you did from the previous round, which was what, 60 days, 70 days, something like that. Um, that was, let's see, March, April, May, basically you went three months, you went almost 90, I think it was 100 days they went before they actually had to, you know, let it all out of there. So, this thing could go on until the end of the summer, which means this time around it's going to be a lot more painful than the last time around. So, I'm, I'm really surprised the market is taking this so complacently.
>> Yeah. Let's talk a bit about Russia. So, this is Sal Americano, who's a regular on the show. He said 48 ships in 120 hours were struck. He calls it Ukraine's brutal campaign to cut off Crimea. Systemic systematic destruction, a breakdown of of the 120-hour surge that saw 48 vessels hit, including 32 tankers, cargo ships, ferries, and tugboats. Um, he talks about what Ukraine's strategy is to choke off Crimea. Also, you've got the refineries that, as you've said, that were struck deep into, they were being struck deep inside Russia. The Ukrainian SS, SBS claims to have damaged 12 additional vessels in one night. That was four days ago. That's additional to what? Let me see because I saved that from um, a previous discussion that I had. Oh, no, hold on. 28 ships. It goes up to 28 ships in one night that were damaged. That's insane. The Ukrainians are just going ballistic on Russia's refining capacity and oil export capacity. And then uh, Putin is, uh, I think he declared something today about this, a new operation to um, increase defense of these refineries. He's also working, Russia is working, Putin said today, Russia is working on a fuel supply system to Crimea that will be very difficult for the enemy to reach. Yeah. I think, and I was talking to another analyst as well. We were talking about the crack spread, and I've given him your theory. I said to you, I was speaking to Jeffrey, and he was talking about the refineries being targeted in Russia and how that could be impacting the spread and the cost of the end product. So his argument, I told you last time, is that the cost of the oil coming out of the Strait of Hormuz is higher than the spot price and what's being, you know, what the mark, what, what's being reported. But then another explanation could be the, the war on refineries that we're seeing in Russia. That's just, but that's why it's just so bizarre. Like if you add that what's happening in Russia, which not enough people are talking about because of the Iran distractions and what we're seeing right now in Iran, this is why I just, it just seems very odd. The markets just seem way too detached or way too optimistic. Unless there's really a glut, there's really that much oil. That's the campaign, Ukrainian campaign to target the Russian ships. Unless there's genuinely more ships coming out, Jeffrey, maybe that's a good question for you. Genuinely more ships coming out of the Strait of Hormuz without their AIS transponders turned on. But, but I, but I would argue that ultimately the product prices are all that matter. Oil is just an internal transfer price. Nobody consumes oil but a refinery. The consumers consume diesel. Diesel today in New York Harbor is $140 a barrel. Just
>> What was it before the war?
>> Oh, before the war it was probably around 85, 90 something like that.
>> So we're much higher. So depending on, if you're, I, I don't want to get in where, where the price of oil is and what's, is there oil coming out of, out of that strait right now? I highly doubt it. Who's going to take that risk right now with the types of hostilities? Who's going to insure it? Um, you've got the blockade. You can't use the northern route. Who's going to put, in fact they say the southern route is open, but can you go through the southern route when you have all the hostilities? You're probably going to get hit. So, nobody's going to go, go through there. You've also emptied out most of the ships that were in there. So, who's going to bring the oil out? And so, you know, let's say you get it out. There's nobody's going to go in there this time. So,
>> There's no, that's, that was my next question. There's, we're not seeing many ships go back into the straits to take oil out. We're not seeing that.
>> And so, it's like, you know, before it's like I like bursting a pimple. They squeeze, it all popped out. That made the price go down. That was a one-off. You look at this now, it's pretty clear what both sides did. They just go, "Hey, let's get out as much as stuff we can, get in as much of stuff as we can through these days." And it would, I don't think it's a coincidence. The hostilities started the Monday morning after the July 4th holiday and after uh, Kamini's funeral. Um, also you got in the SpaceX IPO and a few other things in, in that, in that time period between June 18th and in July at the end of July 4th. But, you know, we're back in a situation now that is far more, I think, concerning than the one that we had before, because this time around the inventories are lower, there. You don't have the reserves that you had before. You have Russia in a much more precarious situation than you had before. And let's not forget, you're running all these refineries in places like the US and Europe at 100% utilization, more so than what anybody ever dreamed they could get. What do you think the probability of something blowing up, something breaking? And they are in places like Galveston. Um, you had an earthquake take out, you know, refining capacity in Venezuela, and Venezuela is chaotic right now after that earthquake. So the, the list goes on and on and on how much tighter these markets are today than what they were before. So if you ask me, do I think the market is being extraordinarily complacent? I do. And I think there is a unwavering faith in the market that, hey, the first round of this didn't cause any problems, so we're not going to have problems this time around, which I think is inappropriate. H, that's why it's just so bizarre. And this is why I'm just surprised by seeing the escalation that we're seeing right now. It just doesn't make sense. It's just such a bizarre escalation considering the circumstances. Like I saw the MOU that Trump signed up to as a perfect offramp for him. I'm like, "Well done for taking that off ramp." For him to be dragged into this, like, why, why can't he just accept Iran charging a fee? Why does it, does it really matter for the US and global trade if Iran does charge a fee? Is it that big of a deal or the market?
>> Because, remember the grand bargain signed in 1944, Bretton Woods, I think it was actually December of '45 somewhere around there. The, the grand bargain was America to protect global sea lanes in exchange for using the US dollar. Um, and that grand bargain has been broken. And ultimately what became really clear, I got to go, is back to, to 1991 in Gulf War I, United States protected the world, and at that point everybody goes, "Hey, that's the grand bargain, it works. I use the US dollar, I trade, and I get protected." And so the US cannot keep. Why did you listen to the tweet? You read the tweet um, that Trump said, "I am the guarantor. The United States is the guarantor of free navigation through out the straits of Hormuz." I think that's the exact words that he used, and that I think he bolded them too. Actually, you probably have them right there. There was something along those lines. And if you break the bran, grand bargain, who's going to trust you going forward? And so I think, you know, actually when I saw those words this morning, I go, "Those are the words we want to be hearing from him," because if he doesn't stand up for that, then you know, the what the US has done and created really starts to be brought into question. So I think, I, I don't know what changed. You know, maybe it was the view that, hey, I just need to get through the 250th celebration and um, and a couple other things, and the Iranians wanted to get through their funeral, and with all of that stuff behind, both of them are back to where they were. But for the United States, it's really important to keep it open. The free navigation of, of, of that of the strait, actually I, I'll find it and read it exactly the words he used. I need
>> I've got to hear: "The Hormuz Strait is open and will remain open without, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the Iranian blockade, so named because it is only stopping Iran's ships or customers from entering and leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the strait. The USA will be, from this point forward, known as the guardian of the Hormuz Strait, but, and as such, but as such, as a matter of fairness, will be reimbursed at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security for this very volatile section of the world." This
>> By the way,
>> On that last clause. So he goes, "I am going to keep the up, I'm going to keep the grand bargain," but his last clause is, "This is really expensive." We made the argument a few years ago that, hey, America can't afford to be the global hegemon. It's super expensive role. I think I made this point in the show that America polices the Pacific to let the Chinese move copper from Chile to China. That's an expensive endeavor to do. He's going, "Look, we don't take the oil out of here, but we protect you guys. You guys better pay for it." And I think, you know, the point I've made in the past is, it didn't matter if it was Trump sitting in the seat as the president of the US. Whoever was sitting there was going to have to deal with the fact that interest rates are higher today. The cost of maintaining that trillion dollar a year military is far too expensive at these types of cost of capital than what it was 5, 10, 15 years ago. And that, and I know you listen to him. His biggest pet peeve is sending money to Europe to defend them. So I, I, I can see where he's coming from in making that, that 20% demand. I don't know if it's the right number. Don't want to get there. I do think the market's not reacting to it correctly and doesn't believe him. But the point being, he goes, "I'm going to defend the grand bargain, but I'm going to charge you to do it because I can't afford to do it anymore."
>> Well said. That's, that's really well said. But I think that explains it really well on what his thinking was, what discussions he's having behind the scenes.
>> So this is
>> Yeah.
>> So this is two things in this tweet. Two things in the tweet. One of them is forcing Iran to concede on charging a fee. This is the stick that we're seeing today in the last few days. The carrot is the reports we've seen of him offering to lift a lot of sanctions and unfreezing of assets in return for Iran giving up on um, charging fee of the Strait of Hormuz. That's number one. And number two is, as part of this tweet, is telling the world like, hey, we're going to continue maintaining the grand bargain, maintaining freedom of navigation around the world on global security and our hegemony, but we're not going to do it for free because that comes at a cost. It's worth it to maintain our hegemony, but it's not worth the cost that is instilling on the country. And this is the beginning of us starting to char, not the beginning, it's been happening since his presidency. But this is us continuing to charge a fee for offering global security, similar to what he's doing with NATO and Europe.
>> Y.
>> Interesting.
>> Yeah. I think you, you hit the nail on the head on all of it. It's not irrational.
>> You hit the nail on the head. I've just repeated what you said. Let's not, don't give me credit.
>> That's interesting though.
>> Yeah. But the, but it also tells you from that that there is no return. There is no taco this time around.
>> He cannot taco.
>> True. True.
>> He's, he has made the bet that the Iranians will fold. Um, you know, in the end, the Americans will win this, but it, it's going to be messy.
>> What does winning look like in the end?
>> Keeping that, that, that strait open.
>> What a shitty win. Jesus Christ. You winning is just cleaning up your mess. I, I just, I don't know if he'll accept that. But that's the problem, Jeffrey. I don't know if he'll accept that. He is
>> Like, for him, it's just such an embarrassing win that the Democrats will just make fun of him non-stop. So, I worry that he's actually going to maybe wants to charge a fee and then turns it into an actual win. Long-term horrible for the US, but maybe, hey, I didn't just, cuz Democrats are like, "He just opened a strait that you closed. What the hell is this?" Cuz people are already mocking him for this. He's like, "No, I'm actually making money for the US right now because of the fee we're charging." So, I don't know. That would be crazy if he does that, but that's, that's like pretty messed up.
>> Yep. I think he thinks that the, the Iranians will, I think the, the view of the US is that the, they, they could make it four to six weeks with a blockade. I don't know how long they, my guess though, the Russians have resupplied them in a lot stronger and they've thought through how to resupply even if they get the blockade, because you got to know the Russians, they, they, they need this to stay, they need it to stay closed. So, you know, yeah, I, I, I would assume that they, that internally they think it's four to six weeks and this thing's open. I don't know. I don't have any information, but history says that's probably, that's probably the right time frame and then somebody folds. But I, I would tend to think and here, you know, let's go back to the Iranians. They've never had this much leverage on the global economy since um, in the 47 years they've been in India ever.
>> So why are they going to fold? That's why I think this is a different ballgame.
>> Jesus Christ. That's like the definition of the escalation trap.
>> Yep.
>> What's the um, what's your price target now for oil?
>> I've never asked that question.
>> You know I, you know I never
>> That's a taboo. That's a, that's a taboo question. That's a taboo question.
>> No, but I know you well enough now, Jeffrey, that I have the guts to ask that question. It's like a rude question to ask.
>> But, but I think it's, do I want to be, you just want to be long this space. I think the one thing is different than we talked about before. I think I want to be long gold this time around. Own gold, because I think you've priced in all the rate hikes and the damage to gold that everybody had anticipated going into this, and you see the reversal, you know, of, you know, whether if it's the US Fed, the other one, so that the, I tend to think you now have the potential for upside in gold, and you know, historically when an economy begins to slow and people become concerned about a recession, and you're seeing it in some of the, you know, the labor data, that's when you want to be long gold, because gold's going to price in that end of that last part of that business cycle. And usually that period is, you know, is characterized by inflationary pressures, which obviously already what with $140 plus dollar diesel, you're already seeing those inflationary pressures beginning to build. So I, I would add gold into that list, but I, I give it always get the caveat, get long, buckle, buckle in, and hang on for the ride. It's not, you know, and everybody's going, "Oh, this, you know, this was this thing's over." Every time you're long a commodity, you're long ball. So it goes up, it comes down, it goes up, it comes down. But every single time it spikes, the way these V investment vehicles work, you end up banking um, those spikes through the rolls, as you did. They like to point out, yeah, you know, like a standard USO was up 40% over this time period, even though the price went back down. So, my, my main point, I don't, I don't want to get on a target on this. I have no idea how high it could go. Um, but I do, I think it's a safe investment, particularly right now. Actually, what's interesting, the people I talked to, they're saying that, you know, it's like a 95 on their get long list. They see it, but they've been beaten up so bad that they're unwilling to go back into this market. And that's unfortunate because, you know, we're sitting here talking that you start to realize the fundamental story for being long energy here is very, very compelling.
>> Um, and I don't think has changed.
>> I'm not a trader, but you are very convincing this because you've explained it so well. Um, what is there anything that could happen that changes your whole thesis, or not changes your thesis but uh, makes you reconsider the thesis? Like what could change right now? Examples like an end to the Iran war and a long-term peace deal. I know this doesn't change all the other issues that you've been talking about, the deglobalization that started years ago, what's happening in Russia, but is there any fundamental changes, whether it's Ukraine war, the war in the Iran war, um, certain economic factors that make you reconsider the position?
>> You right now, you need somebody to, to, to really back off here. Is it the Chinese getting involved and trying to tell everybody, you know, I don't know if the Chinese would even go that far. Um, you know, so the, it, I mean, if anything, if there's a party that could fall over here, it be like, you know, something in Russia, you know, could that be the one that completely implodes? But you know, the immediate, while, while the medium-term to longer-term story of an implosion, you know, civil war or something like that inside Russia, I think is bearish to commodities, because they're going to try to export, just like part of the reason after 9/11 when it collapsed it was so bearish commodities all the way till 2004 was because you were just pumping commodities out of, out of, out of Russia um, trying to get hard cash. And so, but the very, very immediate term in the current environment, if if Russia go, something happens there, um, I don't think it's going to be bearish the very immediate term, you know, and so that, you know, so there, I could change my view, but yeah, because I tend to think the situation Russia's just got to be teetering on threads at this point. In fact, I think the Economist had some guy in this week that they had that he talked to, talk to who made these points.
>> Yeah. And Russian, Russian oligarch or Russian businessman?
>> Fertilizer, the fertilizer king. Um, but yeah, no, he was making I think some, you know, pretty salient points about the instability right now and, and what could end up following, because inside Russia there was a sense a grand bargain between um, the oligarchs and the, and leadership and everything, where, "Hey, leave me alone, let me do my stuff," and, you know, and now that that bargain's been broken inside of Russia. Bargains everywhere are getting broken, and so um, I would say I'm watching Russia as being one area I'd be very cautious about. Um, and um, and then I think in terms of Iran, um, I just, in the next four to six weeks, I don't see, I don't see
>> Oil is still spike, it's up to 76, there's more launches from Yemen right now, just the unconfirmed reports.
>> And oil is up to 76 now, WTI?
>> Yeah, no, I tend to think then we, we're over 80 on, on Brent I assume now.
>> Let me check for you, Brent, yeah, 81, 81.5.
>> Yeah. I mean, that's where it's, you know, it's game on for, for commods once you get back into those, those.
>> Yeah. If they're launching, where are they, where are they launching them? From Yemen, too.
>> Uh, just, I just got a report, more launches from Yemen. No information. There was reports of uh, smoke rising from King Khaled air base in Saudi. Um, there's, that's all unconfirmed, fog of war right now. It's all coming in. That's the first time that the Houthis attack Saudi since 2022, I think. So the significance of this is uh, as you said earlier, this is more significant than Trump's threat of the 20, uh, of the 20% fee. Let me show you this one. This is a strike. Show this please, KK, before we wrap up. This is a strike by Saudi on the Yemen airport. We showed it earlier, but it's a new video. It's more closeup. Um, but yeah, this is uh, just when we thought we were joking offline that I was gonna not take time off, but
>> You're gonna
>> This is in, in Yemen.
>> Yeah.
>> Reportedly,
>> You're not going on holiday anytime in the near future.
>> Exactly. Exactly. This, because this is the time for my yearly holiday. I started last year for the first time in like 12 years. Last year I'm like, "I'm going to start taking holidays." I took my first holiday to the location we discussed a year ago. Exactly a year ago, like a couple of weeks ago, as the anniversary, about four weeks ago is the anniversary. And I was like, "All right, let's do a lighter one now where I still do, you know, four or five interviews a day and, you know, do my business, but let's kind of have a breather."
>> And then uh, Trump decides to just go a, yeah, there's more confirms of drones and missiles fired from Yemen towards Saudi. We don't know the target. I'm assuming it's the airport again, but it's a, it's a [ __ ] show, Jeffrey. Um, fits into your thesis. Obviously, it's a small piece of your thesis. This is all a small piece of a much bigger picture you've been talking about for well before the war, just to be clear.
>> But it's an important piece.
>> Very important. And now we got hostilities and the biggest oil producer in the world.
>> There we go.
>> Because yeah, Saudi's been kind of kept out of this war, the most insulated to an extent. Was attacked by, by uh, Iran, but a lot less in other countries. Well, Iran yesterday attacked Saudi for the first time, and today Yemen, just to be clear, Yemen did not attack Saudi during the war a few months ago. They've just attacked it today.
>> So, I think you can see the axis of resistance. Iran and their allies are all a lot more emboldened. So, we'll see what that leads to.
>> Yeah.
>> Enjoy.
>> All right, sir.
>> Thank you, Jeff.
>> All the best. Take care.
>> See you, man.
>> All right, guys. Will be like, we'll be live with Congressman Ro Khanna in 18 minutes to discuss his visit to the West Bank. Him and his delegation were just detained there a few days ago. I'm sure you've seen that go viral on X. So he'll be coming on the show to talk about everything, but mainly his experience in the West Bank. So I'll see you guys in 18 minutes with Congressman Ro Khanna.