Britain has accused Iran of holding the global economy hostage as diplomats from over 40 countries discuss reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. is absent from the virtual meeting following President Trump's stance that securing the waterway is not America's responsibility. U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper highlighted the impact of Iran's actions on global oil and food prices. Shipping has slowed significantly due to Iranian attacks. French President Macron says reopening the strait by force is unrealistic. More than three dozen countries demanded Iran stop blocking the strait and pledged to ensure safe passage.

U.S. applications for unemployment benefits fell last week as layoffs remain sparse despite a softening labor market and rising energy costs due to the Iran war. The number of Americans applying for jobless aid for the week ending March 28 fell by 9,000 to 202,000 from the previous week’s 211,000, the Labor Department reported Thursday. That’s fewer than the 212,000 new filings analysts surveyed by the data firm FactSet were expecting and within the range of the past several years. Filings for unemployment benefits are considered representative of U.S. layoffs and are close to a real-time indicator of the health of the job market.

President Donald Trump's address to the nation on the Iran war did not always hew to the facts. In his remarks Wednesday night, Trump declared that he inherited a “dead and crippled country” and delivered an economy with “no inflation.” But in 2024, the last year of Joe Biden's presidency, the economy grew faster than any wealthy country in the world except Spain. And inflation has not been eliminated. Trump also depicted Iran's current leaders as less radical than the ones killed in the war. But the new supreme leader is viewed as even more hard-line than the one before, and Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has grown even more ascendant.

Shoppers increased their spending in February, particularly on cars and clothing, after pulling back at the start of the year due to severe winter storms. Retail sales rose a better-than-expected 0.6% in February, from a revised 0.1% decline in January, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. But there’s concern that the Iran war, which is sending gasoline prices soaring and whose impact wasn’t reflected in the retail sales data, will derail spending at a time when Americans have already been squeezed by years of elevated inflation. Gas sped past an average of $4 a gallon on Tuesday for the first time since 2022 and jumped another 4 cents overnight. The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline hit $4.06 Wednesday. That was a dollar more per gallon before the war.

President Donald Trump has prioritized efforts to calm the financial markets during the Iran war, but his go-to moves are starting to fall flat. When the markets have flashed danger, Trump has been quick with a social media post or a remark to claim the war he launched in late February could soon end. That messaging appears to be wearing thin as the Republican president’s various pronouncements have done little to change the reality that a large chunk of the world’s energy supplies is stranded by the conflict. Just 38% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling the economy and only 35% support him on Iran.

A law requiring that most materials in federally funded affordable housing are made in America is fully kicking in. But it is wreaking havoc on affordable developments. Developers are reporting delays, higher costs and hundreds of hours spent figuring out how to comply with the Build America, Buy America Act as prices soar for renters and homebuyers. Developers and housing agencies can ask for exceptions, but the Department of Housing and Urban Development has hardly been approving those requests. The process is going more smoothly for other agencies. The law's supporters say it will boost American manufacturing jobs.

Iran’s Kharg Island is home to a terminal through which the country exports most of its oil. The Persian Gulf island has emerged as a focus of the month-old war launched by the United States and Israel. Strikes on oil infrastructure on Kharg — or a ground invasion — would severely curb Iran’s oil exports, a key source of revenue for the Islamic Republic. It would also mark a major escalation that could provoke even heavier retaliatory attacks on Gulf infrastructure. That would further drive up oil prices that already threaten the world economy. Other islands near the vital Strait of Hormuz could also be targeted.

U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran have darkened the outlook for the world economy. The conflict has driven up oil, natural gas and fertilizer prices and sent global stock markets reeling. Developing countries have been forced to ration fuel and subsidize energy costs to protect their poorest. Ongoing strikes and counterstrikes on Persian Gulf refineries, pipelines, gas fields and tanker terminals threaten to the prolong the global economic pain for months, even years. There previously was optimism the world economy could shrug off damage from the Iran war. But those hopes are fading as threats to the Gulf’s energy infrastructure continue.

U.S. stocks deepened their drops as Wall Street finished off a fifth straight losing week, its longest such streak in nearly four years. The S&P 500 fell 1.7% Friday to close its worst week since the war with Iran began. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 1.7% and fell more than 10% from its record set last month, while the Nasdaq composite sank 2.1%. President Donald Trump’s latest delay in his threat to obliterate Iranian power plants saw oil prices pull back briefly late Thursday, but they resumed their rise Friday as fighting continued in the Middle East.