Geopolitical Expert: Iran War May Drag On For Years

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2:08Welcome to Prof G Markets. I'm Ed Elson. It is September 2nd. let's check in on yesterday's market vitals. The major indices fell as the US launched another round of strikes on Iran. More on that in a second. Brent crude rose. And finally, the yield on 10-year treasuries hit its highest level in more than a year and a half. On Kalshi, odds of a rate hike this year have now climbed to 77%. Okay, what else is happening? The bond market is having its worst stretch since 2006, and it is showing no signs of improving. The 30-year yield is now back near 5.3%, a level that hasn't held this consistently in nearly two decades.

2:51And on top of that, Brent crude is now trading at roughly$95 a barrel, up almost 10 % over the past week. These moves follow a fresh round of fighting with Iran. On Sunday, US forces struck near the Strait of Hormuz and Iran hit back, the first major military escalation in a month. Then yesterday, the US military announced even more attacks. In a post on Truth Social, Trump warned that if Iran were to retaliate, quote, there will be very little left of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Both bonds and oil are pricing in the same thing, a longer war and higher inflation. Here to break this down, we are speaking with Ian Bremmer, founder and president of Eurasia Group.

3:31Ian, thank you so much for joining us on the show. First off, what do we know about these attacks? How important are they? What do they tell us about the conflict at this point?

3:42Ian Bremmer:They tell you that essentially the Iranians and the Americans are still involved in geopolitical price discovery. They are both trying to assert that they have more leverage over the other than the other is willing to accept. And that is both true economically in terms of the amount of pain that can be meted out by the Americans onto the Iranian economy through the blockade and through sanctions, as well as the threat and the use of military force from Iran. That is true in terms of their ability to continue to strangle some of the exports out of the strait and directly, as well as through proxies.

4:29Ian Bremmer:and their willingness to engage in military strikes to ensure that they continue to have that leverage. The fact that there is no agreement on those things means that you continue to have an unwillingness to get to a more sustainable place in negotiations. The Iranians demanding a return to the memorandum of understanding, the Americans saying go scratch. Look, these are still contained strikes. The Iranians upset that five to seven million barrels is getting through the strait, a lot less than was before the war, but more than a couple months ago, has led them to engage in putting more mines or attempting to put more mines into the strait and engage in direct strikes against ships that are going through.

5:20Ian Bremmer:Once they do that, the Americans take shots directly against Iran. Both of these are still pretty constrained. In the old couple months ago, you'd be calling this skirmishing, right? You wouldn't call this a return to all-out war. It's certainly not an escalation that risks getting other Gulf states directly involved the way they were briefly, that kind of thing. But we're nowhere close to an agreement. And that That means that you're still having significant amounts of oil that you do not expect to get through the strait, significant amount you do not expect to get out of Yanbu, Saudi Arabia, and through the Red Sea or up to the Suez.

6:10Ian Bremmer:And given that that is happening in the context of major disruptions in the Russia-Ukraine war as well, there is upward push on oil prices, on gas prices in the United States on gasoline and diesel prices. they have been balanced out by the fact that so much of Chinese demand has been taken off the market because they have massive reserves. But what had been 5 million barrels of import a day has now ticked up to seven for the Chinese. So they are starting to show that they don't want to give up on all of their demand despite a higher price environment. That plus the fact that some of the stockpiles in the United States are at the lowest levels we've seen in decades.

7:04Ian Bremmer:Diesel refining capability is also constrained. So that price is at record highs. Those things are going to continue to have a big impact on price. And one final point, the fact that Trump worked very, very fast to suddenly announce a really big deal with Venezuela, where the Americans will take an almost colonial position in the government directly engaging in an ownership stake in Venezuelan fields and extraction is because Trump sees that the impact on a low level of reserve in the strategic petroleum accounts and that prices are continuing to be higher than he likes, that he needs to address that.

7:50Ian Bremmer:So we should not, from all of the activities that we've watched over the past several days, your expectation for the markets is that this is going on for the foreseeable, predictable future. Yeah, this seems to be what has changed, at least when I'm looking at what's happening, is the market's reaction to it. It seems as though over the past several weeks or so, markets have given Trump the benefit of the doubt, more or less, or at least maybe gave him some more leeway. Now we're seeing$95 a barrel on Brent crude. Now we're seeing rising yields on the 30 year and the 10 year as investors start to price in the possibility of there being elevated inflation, not just for the moment, but for the foreseeable future.

8:38How accurate do you think that response is? Do you think it's correct for us, for the markets, to be pricing in the possibility that this goes on not just for weeks, but several months, maybe years?

8:50Ian Bremmer:Yeah, absolutely. My baseline expectation that this is going on certainly through the midterms, that Trump does not see a reason to give up on the leverage that he thinks he has versus Iran. He's not willing to take the on the blockade or on potential additional military strikes before November. And if he's willing to go past November, he's willing to go beyond that. That's why I mentioned the Venezuela point. Like he's trying to come up with some alternative narratives for a war that he believes is going to continue. You can say that you're going to blow up the Iranians tens of times, as he has over the past six months.

9:30Ian Bremmer:You can threaten them, say that Iran's already functionally destroyed. No one's running the country. The Iranians certainly don't feel that way. They believe they have more leverage and that their leverage comes from the ability and willingness to continue to strangle the strait, including military strikes. And as long as that difference persists between the Iranian perspective and the American perspective of who has leverage, then this war is going to continue. Again, at a constrained level, we don't see the Americans going after massive critical infrastructure. We don't see the Americans deciding they're going to try to kill a bunch of additional Iranian leaders.

10:06Ian Bremmer:nor do we see the Iranians engaging in unfettered strikes against major infrastructure across the Gulf. We don't see that. So as much as I believe the markets are correct in assessing that over the coming months, we are going to continue to have significant conflict and disruption, no deal that works. We should also recognize that the upside on escalation appears to be constrained by both of the principal antagonists. Now, that may not be true of Israel, particularly as we get closer to an election that Bibi Netanyahu may well lose in October. But leaving that aside, and the Americans would put pressure on him certainly not to take such steps, the United States and the Iranians at this point are not getting to a yes.

10:54Ian Bremmer:They're not getting to a negotiated settlement, but they're also not blowing each other to kingdom come. If it's been more than six months since this war began, which it has, and if, as you say, both sides show no real signs of being interested in letting up or coming to some sort of agreement, why should we not believe that this could be like Iraq, that this could be like Afghanistan, that this could last several years? Well, it could potentially last several years, but the Americans are very unwilling to put troops on the ground so it won't look like Iraq or Afghanistan. They appear to be very unwilling to engage in broader strikes against Iranian critical infrastructure because they know what would be coming in return, including with America's Gulf allies.

11:46Ian Bremmer:So that makes it not look like Iraq and Afghanistan. And also, Iran's leverage over the strait is a wasting asset. There will be additional capabilities, radar defensive capabilities where the Gulf states can defend themselves and their key energy assets and their populations better over time, where the Gulf states will have alternatives to get their energy and other product out of their region. They'll export it without using the strait. Other countries around the world will also find other ways to avoid the strait. And that means that Iran needs to figure out what price they're going to extract from having influence because otherwise they're not going to get what they want.

12:31Ian Bremmer:So they can't wait for two, three, four years, or they just don't have the position that they presently are in. For all of those reasons, this looks very different from Iraq from Afghanistan. Just final question. As you mentioned, midterms are coming up. One of the most important topics is affordability, i.e. inflation. And inflation at this point seems to be largely a function of energy prices and therefore what is happening in Iran right now. Do you see prices continuing to go up? Is that one of the takeaways? Yeah. I mean, again, Treasury is what we've seen from Besant is an effort by Trump to give a competing narrative.

13:11Ian Bremmer:what we see in the conversation on Venezuela and the actions, an effort to give a competing narrative. Trump will say this is all fake news. He says the polls are fake. He says that the affordability is a made up issue. The reality is that most voters don't see it that way. Trump is underwater. Trump is badly underwater on the economy. He's badly underwater on inflation. He's badly underwater in Iran. He's also badly underwater since we're talking about water on Lake Ontario, but hasn't stopped him there either. He just doesn't care that much about the midterms. He cares more about himself. He's not the one on the ballot.

13:45Ian Bremmer:Republicans that are running in November are very keenly aware of the difference between the two. Ian Bremmer is founder and president of Eurasia Group. Ian, really appreciate your time. Thank you. Great to see you, man.

14:01After the break, Amazon is headed to court.

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15:59We're back with Profitry Markets. Amazon is returning to court. The FTC, along with 22 states, sued the company on Monday, alleging that it, quote, secretly and systematically overcharged advertisers on its platform. The suit alleges that Amazon manipulated its pricing and auction systems, causing over$20 billion in harm. The company called the suit, quote, misguided, arguing that the complaint, quote, fundamentally misunderstands how advertisers operate. this is the third major FTC suit against Amazon, and the monopolization trial is set for early next year. Amazon shares are down nearly 5 % since the news broke.

16:40Joining us to discuss this case, we're speaking with our favorite antitrust expert, Jonathan Cantor, former Assistant Attorney General for the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice. Jonathan, thank you for joining us. FTC is bringing a case against Amazon, Supposedly, they are misleading advertisers. Walk us through what we know about this. What do you make of the case? This is a blockbuster lawsuit, and I have to hand it to the FTC. I've been critical in the administration when they do the wrong thing, but I'm also quick to praise them when they do the right thing. And this is an example of the administration bringing in important enforcement action against Amazon.

17:18And I should note that it's alongside a large number of bipartisan state attorneys general. So here's what the lawsuit alleges. It says that Amazon sells search ads. And by that, I mean when you go and look for something on Amazon, you typically go in that search bar and you try to find something. Those ads, the rankings that show up from there are paid, and they're sold in an auction. And the kind of auction is called a generalized second price auction. So what that means is not what the highest bidder pays the amount they bid. it means that the highest bidder pays with the next highest bidder bids.

17:58And so what this is supposed to do is it's supposed to incentivize someone in an auction to offer their highest price. So this is a lot of science on this. It's become very common. This is how Google search ads were sold. So people, lots of small businesses on Amazon, a lot of sellers on Amazon, large sellers, were bidding, as this suit alleges, with this notion that they're going to pay the second highest price or penny above the second highest price. What the lawsuit alleges is that Amazon was cooking the auction, that they were effectively putting in a quote-unquote proxy price in order to raise the second highest price of the auction so that they can squeeze out more money from the highest bidder.

18:46And what the FTC and the state attorneys general are arguing is that that is costing advertisers. These are the small businesses primarily selling on Amazon in excess of$20 billion. In other words, would the correct analogy be I hold an auction and secretly bid on the thing that I'm selling myself in order to raise the price? Exactly. And so you're not bidding to win. You're simply bidding. The auctioneer is participating in their own auction in order to raise the price for the winner. And the suit has a lot of really interesting internal documents and quotes from folks at Amazon saying they know exactly what they're doing.

19:28And in fact, the suit alleges that they slowly rolled this out and changed this so that they wouldn't tip off participants in the auction so that they can get away with charging them even more money. It's somewhat surprising to see this lawsuit, to see the FTC be stringent on big tech right now. Largely because, I mean, I think the last time we spoke was when we saw the ousting of Gail Slater, who is one of the heads over at the FTC in the antitrust division. I say ousting. She maybe resigned, but we also know that she was told off by her bosses when she tried to investigate a merger that seems to have some relationship, or at least the defendants of the merger seem to have some relationship with people in the Trump administration.

20:14She got in some trouble. Her subordinates were then fired. Then she leaves the FTC. That was sort of a watershed moment for me where I thought, OK, maybe this FTC actually isn't serious about antitrust. Maybe they don't actually care about these issues. But now we do see, as you say, a pretty significant lawsuit. What are we supposed to make of the actual heft and the intentions of the FTC at this moment in time? I certainly don't want to discourage them from bringing a meritorious case and doing it with bipartisan state attorneys generals. So good for them. I'm glad they did the right thing here.

20:51And let's see how this case plays out. Now, Now, the elephant in the room, so to speak, is the fact that Amazon is very close to the White House and Amazon is, you know, donates money to the ballroom or other kinds of endeavors, supposedly, that the president undertakes. And so the question is whether they will try to use their lobbying heft in order to call off the FTC or whether they've tried to do it so far. Kudos to the FTC for not caving or not giving in and bringing the case. And so the jury's still out on the administration's view on big tech as a whole, largely been quite disappointed.

21:28But when it comes to the FTC, I'll give them credit where credit is due. They're bringing this Amazon case. They're continuing to litigate the other Amazon case. And even though they didn't succeed, they brought the Facebook case to trial. And so that was the right thing to do, and I'm glad to see it. Speaking of Facebook, while we were on break, there was an enormous settlement from Meta. Meta agreed to pay more than$17 billion in penalties after it was sued by multiple states. I'd just love to get your reactions to that Meta settlement. That, to me, does seem like an important and pivotal moment in the story of big tech regulation, and at least a moment where, if you believe that these companies caused harm, they were actually brought to justice in some sense.

22:18Yeah, for two decades, people have been clamoring for regulation or oversight or some accountability for big tech, especially with respect to social media and children. Section 230 and lack of government action, particularly by the U.S. Congress, has effectively allowed these companies to go by untouched and with no accountability for the impact that they're having on society, including on the mental health of children. This marks the first time in which there is accountability. And when I say accountability, yeah, there's the money, right? $17 billion is a lot of money. But let's be frank about that.

22:57Facebook or Meta is not going to break a sweat from$17 billion. It's not going to have a material effect. What's more significant is that the states imposed behavior relief, meaning they are forcing the way in which Facebook and Instagram have to deal with children, what they can show, what times they can appear. Now, in my view, this still doesn't go far enough, but if you view this as a floor rather than a ceiling, it's an opportunity to say, yes, these companies can be held accountable. Yes, these companies can be brought to account in court. And it's a reminder that we desperately need Congress and our government to take action here to protect the safety and security of children and society more broadly.

23:40What is it about this case that made it successful? I mean, as you say, it was decades of unsuccessful attempts to regulate big tech. And then suddenly this happens. What was different about this? It's the big tobacco moment. So they brought the case using very similar theories, legal theories, to how states and victims went after big tobacco. So rather than making it about First Amendment and speech, they made it about knowingly designing their products in a way that will be harmful to kids and harmful to mental health. And so they were able to get past some of the Section 230 immunity that has largely protected the social media companies up until now.

24:20And the fact that Facebook settled suggests they understand that these cases really need to be put behind them. And so perhaps it's the first step forward. The other thing that's really interesting about this is now that Facebook or Meta, the artist formerly known as Facebook, has settled, they have an incentive to encourage enforcers or regulators to impose regulation that holds TikTok and Alphabet's YouTube and others to the same standard or else they may find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. And so what for Tullanao has been the largest opponent in terms of meta-Facebook of regulation is now going to be a proponent of at least having similar kinds of regulation imposed on its direct rivals.

25:07And so the complexion of the whole debate has changed. Do you think then that this might mean that this is the first of many settlements or the first of many at least forceful acts of regulation? Absolutely. So we're, you know, just to be very clear, this settlement doesn't resolve all of the issues. There are plenty more coming. So there are municipalities, there are victims, families that have filed lawsuits. And we're just like Big Tobacco, I think we're going to see a wave of those lawsuits and perhaps settlements. But hopefully this is a wake-up call to Congress, which is that, again, country has been clamoring for relief.