Iran, U.S. Trade Threats After Peace Talks Collapse

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0:21The U.S. threatens to blockade the Strait of Hormuz, setting up a new showdown with Iran. Plus, oil surges, and economists warn of higher inflation and slowing U.S. growth as hopes for a quick end to the war fade. And Trump ally Viktor Orban loses Hungary's election in a historic landslide. It's really been seen as a race between the choice of Europe on one hand and Russia on the other. It's Monday, April 13th. I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. And here is the AM edition of What's News, The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. A U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is due to take effect this morning at 10 a.m.

1:06Eastern. Donald Trump has said that all exports and all vessels coming out of Iranian ports for one week would be blocked. Iran cannot export crude oil, which it has continued to do. And that could involve as well deliveries of food. That's journal correspondent Benoit Foucault. The blockade comes after peace talks between the U.S. and Iran this weekend stalled, with Trump saying that he doesn't care whether Tehran returns for another round of negotiations. So basically, the talks between the U.S. and Iran to end the war effectively collapsed because of very different demands on both sides. The U.S.

1:45wants a long-term abandonment and dismantling of the Iran nuclear enrichment facilities because they see it as a gateway towards building a nuclear weapon. Iran knows it can't enrich right now because its facilities are damaged or they're buried underground under rubble. But Iran wants to be able to resume within a few years. Less than a week into the ceasefire, Trump is reportedly considering limited strikes on Iran, saying that its water and electric plants would be easy to hit. In response, Iran's armed forces warned that if the Strait of Hormuz is threatened, no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will be safe.

2:24And Benoit says the blockade would be considered an escalation of the conflict. Because there's such a large U.S. warship presence in the region, How will Iran respond? That's really the question mark. You know, will there be an outright war between both sides at sea? In an interview on Fox News' Sunday Morning Futures, President Trump tried to clear up some of those question marks, but he didn't exactly calm market jitters in this exchange with Maria Bartiromo. I just have the greatest economy ever. Everything's going along. And I say, I'm sorry. I tell my economic confiders. They say, I'm sorry, fellas.

3:00We're in great shape. We have to go and take a little journey down to Iran and we have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. They all said we agree. So do you believe the price of oil and gas will be lower before the midterm elections? I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be the same or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same. Oil prices are surging in the wake of the breakdown in talks, crossing back above the$100 a barrel mark. Journal editor Anthony DeBarros oversees our quarterly survey of economists, the most recent of which dropped over the weekend, and said the conflict is driving an increasingly cloudy economic outlook.

3:38One reason is they see persistent inflationary pressure, in part from rising energy costs as a result of the Iran war, which we saw reflected in Friday's inflation data from the federal government. But they also say the recent Supreme Court ruling that invalidated the Trump administration's reciprocal tariffs won't offer much relief on prices either. Their consensus calls for inflation to remain above 3 % through the year. Economists have also lowered their yearly U.S. growth forecast to 2 % from a prior 2.2 % and predict a weakening hiring landscape, though Anthony said that most don't think the war will actually knock the economy off its rails.

4:21Over the past few years, consumers have shown a surprising ability to keep on shopping even though prices keep rising. And what worries economists now is that additional price increases caused by the war could finally be the straw that breaks the camel's back and forces consumers to tighten their budgets. But other economists point to continued massive spending on AI infrastructure and also resilience among wealthy consumers that is going to help the economy avoid a major downturn. Meanwhile, the Philippines has ordered meta to curb panic-inducing content amid a national energy emergency fueled by the Iran war.

5:07That includes misleading claims around exaggerated oil price increases and energy supply disruptions, which the government said risked causing economic disorder. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has already implemented resource-saving measures, including a four-day government workweek, and warned that Meta has seven days to comply with local laws or face consequences. To further combat disinformation, the government is also launching a public reporting platform for social media users. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Hungary's Viktor Orban has been voted out of office, ending his 16-year run as one of the global standard bearers of right-wing populism.

5:48Our Matthew Luxmore is in Budapest this morning. Matthew, what sealed Orban's fate here? He had held off challengers before in 2014 and 2018, as well as in 2022, and there have been concerns going into this election about whether there could even be a fair vote in Hungary. Well, what sealed it can really be summed up in one word, the economy. Orban has really, according to most analysts we've talked to here, focus much less on domestic issues such as falling real wages, inflation, and allegations of corruptions among the party's highest ranks, and much more on foreign policy and this Orban effort quite successful to rally the international conservative movement.

6:32Notably, big connections back to President Trump and his administration. Exactly, exactly. He's become close allies with President Trump, who endorsed him last week and send his vice president, J.D. Vance, to come and campaign alongside Orban and urge Hungarians to vote for him as the safest choice. And of course, that did not make a difference for Orban. He lost by a landslide and the largest margin in Hungary's post-communist history since it regained independence in 1989. You mentioned there some of the ways this race had taken on some larger overtones. And I guess we saw that on the other side of things, the cheers that went up last night among the crowd celebrating the win of Peter Magyar included chance of Europe and Russians go home.

7:19Yeah, it's really been seen as a race between the choice of Europe on one hand and Russia on the other. There have been widespread allegations over the last few weeks that this campaign has been really heating up that the Fidesz party is cozying up to Russia. There were leaked telephone calls released in the past couple of weeks where the foreign minister is speaking to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and offering to forward him internal European Union documents and also help him with an effort to get Western sanctions on a Kremlin-linked oligarch sister removed. But on the other hand, Magyar has promised to regain funds withheld by the EU because of allegations of democratic backsliding in Hungary.

8:07And he's promised to be far more friendly to the European Union. In our final seconds, is this the end of Orban? You know, we've highlighted some of the links back to Trump, who, of course, lost an election himself and then was right back in power four years later. The thing with Orban, anyone who has been watching him for a while will tell you is you should never write this guy off. And in his speech yesterday, he said, we will never stop fighting. Never, never, never. So that's quite a clear message that he intends to come back. But how he does that after such a huge loss with two thirds of Hungarians voting against him is difficult to see.

8:43With such a sweeping mandate to make reforms in the country of a two thirds majority in parliament, Magyar's hands are untied really. And it's a very, very different outcome if he had won by a slimmer margin, which again, would have left the door open for Orbán to work behind the scenes to undermine the new government. Journal foreign correspondent Matthew Luxmore today with us in Budapest, Hungary. Matthew, thanks so much. Thank you. Coming up, Eric Swalwell ends his bid to be California's next governor over sexual misconduct allegations. And Rory McIlroy earns another green jacket. Those stories and more after the break.

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9:41in california representative eric swalwell has ended his campaign for governor after the san Francisco Chronicle and CNN published accounts from women accusing the seven-term congressman of sexual misconduct. Some fellow Democrats and Republicans are urging Swalwell to immediately quit Congress, too, and pairing that request by urging Republican Tony Gonzalez of Texas to also step down after he admitted having an affair with a staff member who later killed herself. Speaking on NBC News' Meet the Press, Republican Representative Byron Donalds of Florida said that he would back efforts to expel both Swalwell and Gonzalez if it came up for a vote.

10:19These allegations are despicable and they demean the integrity of Congress. These things are just completely unacceptable. As far as I'm concerned, both gentlemen need to go home. Representatives for both Swalwell and Gonzalez didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. The world's largest meat company, JBS, has reached a new labor deal with a local union representing thousands of beef processing plant workers in Colorado. The agreement includes wage increases and comes a week after workers return to the job, ending the largest strike at a U.S. meat processing plant in decades. JBS was able to weather the three-week strike after some workers crossed the picket line and after shifting deliveries to other plants running under capacity because of a nationwide cattle shortage that's been driving up beef prices for Americans.

11:05And we are exclusively reporting that the Federal Trade Commission is in settlement talks with major ad firms over an antitrust probe. The investigation centered on whether ad companies like Publicis and WPP, as well as various advocacy groups, engaged in anti-competitive behavior by collectively withholding ad dollars from platforms including Elon Musk's X. As part of the proposed deal, the ad firms would agree not to direct clients' ad budgets away from media platforms based on political content that might appear on those sites. And finally, Rory McIlroy has won his second consecutive Masters title, joining an elite group of only four golfers to have ever achieved back-to-back wins at Augusta National.

11:50Journal sports reporter Andrew Beaton says although McIlroy may have been the defending champion, he didn't make things easy for himself. Like any time with Rory McIlroy, there were a lot of highs and lows. He started the tournament with a bang, finishing the first 36 holes with the biggest two-day lead in Masters history. But then, in the third round, that lead completely evaporated. And then in the fourth round, it looked like he might just become an afterthought. but he steeled himself, finished with a bogey, and then he could finally exhale. And unlike last year when there was total jubilation, this year it almost looked like relief.

12:26The rest of 2026 will be a question of who can do more, Rory McIlroy or Scotty Scheffler? They're fan favorites, but the question for both of them will be, can either of them take home another major over the course of the rest of the season? In this one, McIlroy finished one stroke on top, but the margins were razor thin. And that's it for What's News for this Monday morning. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer and Daniel Bach. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. And I'm Luke Vargas for The Wall Street Journal. We will be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

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