The wider consequences of war

Markets are hopeful, but for now the war is still very much on. From Marketplace, I'm Subri Benishor. In for David Brancaccio. President Trump is scheduled to address the nation about Iran tonight at 9 p.m. Eastern. He told reporters yesterday the war could wrap up in two to three weeks, even if there is no peace deal struck with Iran's government. Meanwhile, Iran has issued a new threat against U.S. businesses operating in the Gulf region, saying they'll be targeted within hours. Marketplace's Nova Safo has more on that. Through semi-official news agencies, Iran warned it will launch regional attacks against U.S. businesses it accuses of aiding in the war. Among those named are Microsoft, Google, Intel, Tesla and Boeing. The attacks will reportedly commence at 8 p.m. local time, which would be around 12 30 p.m. Eastern. Iran warned employees of the companies it named to leave their workplaces. The White House responded that the U.S. military is prepared to curtail the attacks. If Iran follows through on its threats, it will be reminiscent of the war's early days when drones damaged three Amazon data centers in the Gulf. The attacks highlighted vulnerabilities, especially for tech companies. Data centers are large complexes and not protected against military attacks. Cloud computing networks have redundancies, but can suffer outages if multiple locations go offline. I'm Nova Safo for Marketplace. The fuels that get us from A to B have gotten a lot more expensive. Gas is up 36% in the month, diesel up 32% and then there is jet fuel. It is up more than 100% though it did come down a hair last week. Marketplace's Samantha Fields has more on how spiking fuel prices are affecting airlines and travelers. People tend to book plane tickets a month to three months in advance, so many had not yet booked summer travel when the war began in February. Since then, Henry Hardeveld at Atmosphere Research Group says airfares have jumped. It doesn't matter whether it's a budget airline or a global network airline, whether you're paying first class or a coach, you are seeing higher fares for every type of flight on every type of route. Airlines have also increased fuel surcharges on international flights. A London affair that I was looking at had a fuel surcharge of approximately $300 back in February. When I looked yesterday, the fuel surcharge was $800 on the round trip. As airlines costs have risen, Magna Maherishi at the Travel Sites Gift says they've been finding a variety of ways to pass them on to consumers. We're not really getting too many indications that these increases are having a super strong effect on demand, but much of that demand is being propped up by premium travelers. So far, she says, those premium travelers airlines have increasingly been catering to seem undeterred by rising prices. I'm Samantha Fields for Marketplace. 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Economists say it'll slow down economic growth this year, but most are not predicting it'll take us into a recession territory. That is not the case elsewhere in the world. Countries that had no role in starting or waging this war are paying a heavy price for it. This is particularly true in Asia. Clara Gillespie's senior fellow for climate and energy at the Council on Foreign Relations, she joins us to talk about why. Good morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. The Philippines declared a national emergency a week ago. You had news anchors in Thailand urging people to use their AC less and taking off their suit jackets on the air because they weren't running their AC. It just sounds like the consequences are very palpable for people there in a way that we're not seeing here yet. They are, and they're fairly immediate in multiple ways. So you have, for example, the Philippines is virtually fully reliant on the US government is virtually fully reliant on imported oil to meet its needs for that fuel. So this disruption hits fairly immediately and directly. It's also one that has historically done less to subsidize the price of fuels so it more directly and quickly hits consumers as well. But it's going to start to show up in state budgets as well and have knock-on effects on the health of different economies. Why are the disruptions so much worse there? Asia is heavily reliant in a direct way on imports from the Middle East. So when you talk about the flows of oil and natural gas that come through the Strait of Hormuz, about 80% of both of those end up directly in this region. But we're also talking about some of the world's largest consumers of energy. Are there alternatives like stockpiles or could they get energy from somewhere else? Different countries do have some fairly substantial stockpiles, but not all in this region. So talking about below 50 days in some cases. At the same time, you also do have a effort to look more globally and see where there is potentially additional cargoes available on the spot market or through other supply. The challenge there is not always that there isn't that supply available, but different kinds of oil also have different grades and abilities. So you have light and sweet versus sour and heavy, which can shape how different economies have built their refineries, their manufacturing capabilities to make use of this. So basically, not all oil is created equally and not all countries are able to process all oil. That's correct. What about alternatives like either renewables or nuclear or other fossil fuels like coal? In the near term, a number of countries do have underutilized capacity in coal. You also see a number of countries, and I'm thinking of the Philippines and Indonesia in particular, note that they're still continuing to prioritize and focus on those energy transition goals. Clara Gillespie is Senior Fellow for Climate and Energy at the Council on Foreign Relations. Thank you so much. Thank you. In New York, I'm Sabri Beneshore with the Marketplace Morning Report. From 8 p.m., American Public Media. Why do we keep putting off the financial tasks we know we need to do? I'm Rima Cherez, and this week on my podcast This Is Uncomfortable, I talk with a behavioral expert about commitment devices, the tricks we can use to force ourselves to follow through. The most extreme form of commitment device is literally saying you're going to find yourself. Like, I'm going to have to give $50 to a politician's campaign who I hate if I haven't done this by next Friday. Listen to This Is Uncomfortable wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you.