# Trump Begins Hormuz Blockade Even as US, Iran Eye More Talks

An episode of [Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia Edition](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1663863437), 14 Apr 2026, 20 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/58e85be7-dbb5-4043-afed-af80014dc0b3/5bc22291-3ef0-4fc0-8847-b42c0025ac01/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=27143354-63aa-4ac5-965d-af80014dc0d3

Business and finance news from the Asia-Pacific. Asian stocks advanced as interest in artificial intelligence shares resurfaced, with Middle East tensions appearing to ease after President Donald Trump raised hopes for talks with Iran. Oil fell. Helping sentiment, Brent crude fell 1.5% to $97.85 a barrel on signs Washington and Tehran may revive peace talks following the start of a US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. For more on the oil story, we spoke to Stephen Stapczynski, Bloomberg's Asia Energy Team Leader. Plus - the US and Iran are in discussions about holding another round of face-to-face negotiations after meetings in Islamabad over the weekend ended in failure, according to people familiar with the matter. The goal is to hold fresh talks before a two-week ceasefire announced April 7 expires next week, according to the people. We heard from William Roebuck, Former US Ambassador to Bahrain & Former US Deputy Special Envoy for the Global Coalition Against ISIS. He spoke to Bloomberg's Shery Ahn and Haidi Stroud-Watts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio News.
[0:10] Speaker 2: Welcome to the Daybreak Asia podcast. I'm Doug Krisner, or
[0:14] Speaker 2: in the Mid East Tops Hour news Flow. We are
[0:17] Speaker 2: being told the US and Iran are in discussions about
[0:19] Speaker 2: holding another round of face to face negotiations for a
[0:22] Speaker 2: longer term cease fire. This is after weekend negotiations in
[0:26] Speaker 2: Islamabad ended without a deal. Tonight, in the States, Vice
[0:30] Speaker 2: President jd Vance told Fox News Iran holds the deciding
[0:34] Speaker 2: hand in what comes next. And at the same time,
[0:38] Speaker 2: Shinwan News reports that Chinese Premier Li Chiang said that
[0:41] Speaker 2: Beijing is ready to further play a constructive role in
[0:45] Speaker 2: promoting peace and stability in the Gulf. Now, in New
[0:48] Speaker 2: York trading, on Monday, oil prices rose as the market
[0:51] Speaker 2: braced for further supply shortages. But now in Asian trading,
[0:55] Speaker 2: prices are in retreat. For a closer look at what's happening,
[0:59] Speaker 2: I'm joined by Bloomberg Stevens Chepchinski. Stephen is team leader
[1:02] Speaker 2: for Asia Energy coverage and he joins us from our
[1:05] Speaker 2: studios in Singapore. Thank you for being here. I think
[1:08] Speaker 2: it's important to point out that on Monday, the US
[1:12] Speaker 2: officially began this naval blockade of the Strait of Horn Moves.
[1:15] Speaker 2: Do we have a sense of what is happening here
[1:19] Speaker 2: and how it's having an impact?
[1:22] Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean immediately you're seeing shipping through the Strait
[1:25] Speaker 3: of Hormu's slump back down again on Monday, reversing a
[1:29] Speaker 3: jump that we had seen kind of over the weekend
[1:31] Speaker 3: as some vessels were using the Iranian route and potentially
[1:35] Speaker 3: paying tools through Iran. I think now there's a clamp
[1:38] Speaker 3: down on vessels going through that have connections with Iran,
[1:42] Speaker 3: are carrying Iranian oil, or or are sanctioned by the
[1:46] Speaker 3: US for the Iranian oil trade. So it does seem
[1:50] Speaker 3: that the clarity that we're getting is that the blockade
[1:52] Speaker 3: is really to limit those sorts of ships. It isn't
[1:56] Speaker 3: to necessarily block all traffic for other countries. But again
[2:02] Speaker 3: that creates an issue because now there are essentially two blockades.
[2:05] Speaker 3: You not just have the US being much tighter on
[2:10] Speaker 3: the ships that are coming out related to Tehran, but
[2:13] Speaker 3: you also have Tehran trying to control the strait as well,
[2:18] Speaker 3: and so other vessels like Liqui finatial gas tankers from
[2:23] Speaker 3: Qatar or oil shipments from Saudi Arabia are not very
[2:28] Speaker 3: eager to go through out of fear that there could
[2:30] Speaker 3: be retaliation. So until there is a normalization of the
[2:34] Speaker 3: transit through the straight offom moves, and until there's more
[2:36] Speaker 3: clarity on both sides, traffic has essentially dropped.
[2:40] Speaker 2: It's interesting the Wall Street Journal was reporting that Saudi
[2:43] Speaker 2: Arabia is pricing the US to drop the blockade and
[2:47] Speaker 2: return to negotiations. Do you have a sense of where
[2:50] Speaker 2: we are in this process? Are we closer to some
[2:53] Speaker 2: sort of resolution. I know you're not a political analyst,
[2:56] Speaker 2: but if you have been listening to this story as
[2:58] Speaker 2: it's played out for the last five or six weeks,
[3:00] Speaker 2: nearly you begin to get a sense of which way
[3:04] Speaker 2: the wind is blowing.
[3:06] Speaker 4: You know.
[3:06] Speaker 3: I think one thing to look at in all of this,
[3:09] Speaker 3: Even even when in the early days of the war,
[3:12] Speaker 3: whenever I spoke with analysts, they said, look at the
[3:14] Speaker 3: price of gasoline because in the United States, because that
[3:18] Speaker 3: is really going to be the true barometer as to
[3:20] Speaker 3: how much the American public will be able to withstand
[3:23] Speaker 3: this ongoing war, and how much Trump will be able
[3:25] Speaker 3: to withstand it as well, because he very closely monitors that.
[3:29] Speaker 3: And again we had just in the last twenty four hours,
[3:33] Speaker 3: you know, Trump and in the White House signal that
[3:37] Speaker 3: you know they're they're going to be having more talks
[3:41] Speaker 3: with Tehran. You had jd. Vance speak on Fox News
[3:45] Speaker 3: saying that they've accomplished their objectives and they can start
[3:49] Speaker 3: to wind this thing down. I think there is an
[3:51] Speaker 3: acknowledgment in the White House that not only are they
[3:55] Speaker 3: under pressure from their allies in the Middle East, in
[3:58] Speaker 3: Europe and elsewhere, there's also this acknowledgement that this needs
[4:02] Speaker 3: to wind down because if this continues, every day hormones
[4:06] Speaker 3: is blocked, oil prices or at least the physical oil
[4:10] Speaker 3: market gets tighter. And while maybe the future's prices aren't
[4:14] Speaker 3: pricing that in, they don't show it necessarily at all moments,
[4:17] Speaker 3: because prices are trading and the market is trading based
[4:21] Speaker 3: on the sentiment and what Trump says. Every day the
[4:24] Speaker 3: strait remains closed, there are millions of barrels of oil
[4:27] Speaker 3: that aren't making its way to the market, and that
[4:30] Speaker 3: does threaten to increase the price of oil products like gasoline,
[4:34] Speaker 3: but also jet fuel NAFTA, which is used for making
[4:38] Speaker 3: different types of plastics. So this together is all very inflationary,
[4:43] Speaker 3: and as this continues and as the prices remain high,
[4:47] Speaker 3: the White House will be under pressure to try to
[4:50] Speaker 3: end this in some way.
[4:52] Speaker 2: So beyond the straight and the closure that we have seen,
[4:55] Speaker 2: it's also I think important to point out that there
[4:57] Speaker 2: has been a fair amount of damage to some of
[4:59] Speaker 2: the oil infrastructure in the Gulf. Do we know how
[5:03] Speaker 2: severe it is and the recovery time that may be required.
[5:07] Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think there are. It seems that a
[5:10] Speaker 3: lot of different facilities have been hit, some of them
[5:14] Speaker 3: have been shut so that one of the over the
[5:16] Speaker 3: last week a very important pipeline between for for Saudi Arabia.
[5:23] Speaker 3: It's called the East West Pipeline. It ships oil out
[5:26] Speaker 3: of the Persian Golf and into the Red Sea so
[5:28] Speaker 3: they can bypass the Strait of Hormus and go through
[5:30] Speaker 3: the Dabel Mandab straight to customers in Asia. That was damaged,
[5:35] Speaker 3: it has been repaired and back online again. There have
[5:39] Speaker 3: been a lot of these sorts of situations where refineries
[5:42] Speaker 3: or gas platforms have been hit and there has been repairs.
[5:45] Speaker 3: But I think one of the main things to look at,
[5:48] Speaker 3: in my view, is a damage to a facility called Roslafon.
[5:51] Speaker 3: It's the world's biggest liquefied natural gas export facility in Qatar,
[5:56] Speaker 3: and it was damaged the by Iranian missiles the night
[5:58] Speaker 3: of March eighteen to night and it took offline about
[6:02] Speaker 3: seventeen percent of the capacity. Now seventy percent of capacity
[6:05] Speaker 3: might seem small, but because it's the world's biggest facility
[6:08] Speaker 3: that is millions of tons of energy exports a year,
[6:15] Speaker 3: it could it threatens to basically tighten the global gas
[6:21] Speaker 3: market for three to five years, which is how long
[6:24] Speaker 3: Katar says it will take to repair that part of
[6:27] Speaker 3: the facility. So I think if you were to look
[6:28] Speaker 3: at all the damage, and there has been, you know,
[6:31] Speaker 3: strikes on all facilities, it does seem like this energy
[6:35] Speaker 3: export plant in particular was hit the hardest and could
[6:38] Speaker 3: have the longest repair time.
[6:39] Speaker 2: So how have countries in the APAC region been adjusting
[6:43] Speaker 2: the consumption of energy as a result of these supply disruptions?
[6:47] Speaker 3: They've been consuming less, I mean, that's the thing about
[6:51] Speaker 3: these sorts of energy shortages. And I've covered also the
[6:54] Speaker 3: twenty twenty two energy crisis after Russia's invasion of Ukraine
[6:58] Speaker 3: upended oil and gas markets When there isn't enough of something,
[7:01] Speaker 3: prices rise and those who cannot afford it do not
[7:04] Speaker 3: consume anymore. They're unable to compete for it, and that's
[7:07] Speaker 3: what we're seeing across South and Southeast Asia. In the
[7:10] Speaker 3: early days of the war in Iran, you saw almost
[7:15] Speaker 3: immediately India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan reduce gas flows to fertilizer facilities.
[7:21] Speaker 3: India has been able to increase gas flows again to
[7:23] Speaker 3: fertilizer plants, but because they're getting twenty percent less energy
[7:27] Speaker 3: right now than they were last year, there just isn't
[7:30] Speaker 3: enough gas for all industries. So because of that, they're
[7:33] Speaker 3: having the curb gas flows to power plants, so they're
[7:37] Speaker 3: depending more on coal. They're curbing gas flows to different industries,
[7:42] Speaker 3: which threatens their output. The same in Pakistan, they might
[7:45] Speaker 3: have to raise electricity prices because they have to use
[7:48] Speaker 3: more expensive fuel oil to produce electricity. And then for
[7:52] Speaker 3: the countries that can afford the fuel or the gas,
[7:57] Speaker 3: they're trying to find ways to also subsidize it. That's
[8:01] Speaker 3: South Korea and Taiwan. The governments there have essentially been
[8:05] Speaker 3: trying to figure out ways to make sure that the
[8:07] Speaker 3: consumer doesn't take a big hit on their energy bills,
[8:11] Speaker 3: so they've essentially kept subsidies going. But that's a risk
[8:15] Speaker 3: because if you don't allow the true price of energy
[8:18] Speaker 3: to go through to the end user, you won't reduce
[8:21] Speaker 3: demand like what you're seeing in the emerging world. So
[8:23] Speaker 3: then what happens is that there's too much demand and
[8:26] Speaker 3: they're not cutting back in these developed countries, and that
[8:29] Speaker 3: exacerbates the shortage or exacerbates the problem, and it increases
[8:32] Speaker 3: the bill for the government.
[8:33] Speaker 2: So to what extent do you believe that the Trump
[8:36] Speaker 2: administration is going to be facing a great deal of
[8:39] Speaker 2: pressure to get some sort of solution to wrap up
[8:42] Speaker 2: this conflict and to get oil flows resuming.
[8:47] Speaker 3: I mean, I think there's pressure from the people at home.
[8:50] Speaker 3: Certainly when oil prices are this high and gasoline prices
[8:54] Speaker 3: rise to the highest level in years, no one is happy.
[8:57] Speaker 3: That is something that impacts the American consumer immediate. And
[9:00] Speaker 3: one of the things that Trump ran on was no
[9:03] Speaker 3: wars and no inflation. Essentially cheaper, cheaper, cheaper energy. Drill,
[9:07] Speaker 3: baby drill, And that's that's showing that while US is
[9:11] Speaker 3: producing a lot of oil like it shows how connected
[9:13] Speaker 3: the US is with international markets. Now when you look
[9:16] Speaker 3: at the allies, there are also countries pressuring the Trump administration.
[9:20] Speaker 3: You mentioned Saudi Arabia, also European countries have said that
[9:25] Speaker 3: that this is uh you know, basically this, this blockade
[9:28] Speaker 3: continuing is unacceptable. Countries will not join the US blockade.
[9:34] Speaker 3: You have the CEO of ad NOCU, the biggest energy
[9:37] Speaker 3: company out of the UAE, saying that, you know, they
[9:41] Speaker 3: this this what the situation in horror moves with Iran is.
[9:45] Speaker 3: It cannot continue. It's not freedom of navigation. They want
[9:48] Speaker 3: this to end. So every again, every day this continues,
[9:52] Speaker 3: this risks a worse energy crisis for the world. So
[9:56] Speaker 3: there is pressure internally externally on the Trump administration to
[10:00] Speaker 3: end this and end this quickly, and in this in
[10:02] Speaker 3: a way where Iran doesn't have total control control over
[10:05] Speaker 3: the strait.
[10:06] Speaker 2: Not to mention the fact that there is still a
[10:08] Speaker 2: mission to try to keep Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
[10:12] Speaker 2: There is the issue of enriched uranium as well.
[10:16] Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, and it seems that according to those reports
[10:19] Speaker 3: there is that is one of the main, if not
[10:21] Speaker 3: the main sticking point. That's that's what Trump also ran on.
[10:25] Speaker 3: He doesn't want Iran to have nuclear weapons, and there's
[10:28] Speaker 3: a disagreement over exactly how long A coing to reports
[10:32] Speaker 3: how long Iran would have to pause their nuclear enrichment
[10:36] Speaker 3: development systems.
[10:38] Speaker 2: Steven, thank you so very much. We'll leave it there,
[10:40] Speaker 2: Bloomberg Steven Stepchinsky. He is team leader for Asia Energy coverage.
[10:45] Speaker 2: Joining from Singapore here on the Daybreak Asia podcast. Welcome
[10:56] Speaker 2: back to the Daybreak Asia Podcast. I'm Doug Prisner. So,
[10:59] Speaker 2: President Trump naval blockade of the Straight of hor Moves
[11:02] Speaker 2: is underway. The aim here is to raise pressure on Tehran,
[11:06] Speaker 2: and now we're being told the US and Iran are
[11:08] Speaker 2: in discussions about holding another round of face to face
[11:11] Speaker 2: negotiations for a longer term cease fire. We are told
[11:15] Speaker 2: the goal here is to hold fresh talks before a
[11:18] Speaker 2: two week cease fire announced back on April seventh expires.
[11:23] Speaker 2: So one idea is to return to Islamabad for a
[11:26] Speaker 2: second round of negotiations. That's where we begin our conversation
[11:30] Speaker 2: with William Roebuck. William is former US Ambassador to Bahrain.
[11:34] Speaker 2: He spoke with Bloomberg TV host Heidi Stroudwatts and Sherry.
[11:38] Speaker 5: On You've been in high stakes negotiations. Tell us what
[11:42] Speaker 5: needs to happen in this second round. What's happened in
[11:44] Speaker 5: the fourth one because JB Vance was only Pakistan for
[11:48] Speaker 5: twenty plus hours, nothing came out of it. What needs
[11:51] Speaker 5: to happen in this one, and who needs to be
[11:53] Speaker 5: at the table as well.
[11:56] Speaker 4: I think the big thing they're going to have to
[11:58] Speaker 4: do is narrow the the differences from what was discussed openly.
[12:06] Speaker 4: I mean that we had access to it. Sounds like
[12:08] Speaker 4: their positions were extremely far apart. It's good, you know,
[12:14] Speaker 4: in an initial round of negotiations like this, the two
[12:17] Speaker 4: sides put out their maximalist positions. But I think, you know,
[12:21] Speaker 4: going forward, they're going to need to sort of narrow
[12:25] Speaker 4: those positions and find some elements of common ground that
[12:29] Speaker 4: they can begin to either agree to or at least
[12:33] Speaker 4: get closer on. And we'll see how that develops. As
[12:40] Speaker 4: far as the composition of the two sides, I think
[12:43] Speaker 4: that's that's up to the White House and to the
[12:45] Speaker 4: On the Iranian side, I think that my sense is
[12:47] Speaker 4: that their side is going to remain as it is,
[12:52] Speaker 4: but the president President Trump will have to decide what
[12:54] Speaker 4: the composition is. I don't know if the Vice President
[12:57] Speaker 4: will stay with the lead on this negotiation or feel
[13:00] Speaker 4: back away a little bit and let Steve Whitcoff and
[13:03] Speaker 4: Jared Kushner take the lead and negotiations as they move forward.
[13:08] Speaker 5: You mentioned the need to find common ground. Where do
[13:11] Speaker 5: you see that potential?
[13:15] Speaker 4: Well, I think if they can come to some sort
[13:19] Speaker 4: of arrangement over the strait, that's going to be incredibly important.
[13:23] Speaker 4: There are a lot of stakeholders looking at that issue.
[13:27] Speaker 4: Our golf partners in particular, very concerned about the arrangements
[13:33] Speaker 4: that the Iranians have been able to impose. They want
[13:36] Speaker 4: all of those arrangements removed, and they want the situation
[13:41] Speaker 4: to return to essentially the status quo anti before the war.
[13:49] Speaker 4: So that's a key issue. And the other cluster issues
[13:52] Speaker 4: have to do with Iran's nuclear program. There what they
[13:59] Speaker 4: perceive as their right to enrich uranium at low levels
[14:04] Speaker 4: and also at the also the the the importance of
[14:15] Speaker 4: what is going to happen with the I'm sorry, I've
[14:20] Speaker 4: got to check that hundred pounds of uranium that is
[14:30] Speaker 4: highly enriched and that they're going to have to find
[14:32] Speaker 4: something to do with it. The Trump administration wants the
[14:36] Speaker 4: Iranians to give it all up and the Uranians want
[14:40] Speaker 4: to uh keep it and work it to diluted quantities
[14:46] Speaker 4: inside Iran.
[14:49] Speaker 1: I'm that that was going to be my next question,
[14:51] Speaker 1: because I think in a sense, you can you can
[14:53] Speaker 1: see how an agreement over the thread of hor moves
[14:56] Speaker 1: could be made on more commercial grounds throughout a deal
[14:59] Speaker 1: being made there, whether it includes tolls being charged by
[15:02] Speaker 1: Iran or the US or you know, this joint venture
[15:05] Speaker 1: that President Trump has even alluded to. But the nuclear
[15:09] Speaker 1: issue is that a more existential one for Iran?
[15:12] Speaker 5: Do you see the leaders in.
[15:14] Speaker 1: Teyran giving that up, particularly in light of, you know,
[15:18] Speaker 1: having just been through the last six weeks of war.
[15:23] Speaker 4: I do. I think for the regime it's an existential issue.
[15:29] Speaker 4: They have survived this war so far. I think under
[15:35] Speaker 4: very difficult circumstances. It's not a pleasant regime. It's a ruthless,
[15:40] Speaker 4: violent regime against his own people. I don't make apologies
[15:43] Speaker 4: for it, but just in terms of a regime that
[15:46] Speaker 4: controls a state, they have survived a lot. I don't
[15:51] Speaker 4: believe that they are going to concede in absolute terms
[15:57] Speaker 4: some degree of a right to enrich urin. I think
[16:00] Speaker 4: it's a bedrock. That's what they have conveyed that it's
[16:04] Speaker 4: a bedrock principle for them. It was negotiated in clever,
[16:10] Speaker 4: careful ways under the previous nuclear agreement with JCPOA and
[16:15] Speaker 4: President Obama. I don't know if the Trump administration has
[16:20] Speaker 4: the desire to find a clever solution that would be
[16:25] Speaker 4: symbolic in allowing them some degree of symbolic but very
[16:30] Speaker 4: very low level of enrichment, so that they could at
[16:32] Speaker 4: least say they have a nuclear program, civilian nuclear program.
[16:37] Speaker 4: It remains to be seen how far, if at all,
[16:39] Speaker 4: the Trump administration is willing to move on this.
[16:48] Speaker 1: There's also the pressure for Golf states as well. Right,
[16:52] Speaker 1: how much buying do you think they have when it
[16:55] Speaker 1: comes to how these talks go, because so much of
[16:59] Speaker 1: the sort of collateral damage we saw was really for
[17:02] Speaker 1: a lot of America's allies. And do you think any
[17:05] Speaker 1: kind of compromise being reached there as well? Because one
[17:07] Speaker 1: of reportedly one of Iran's demands in these peace talks
[17:11] Speaker 1: was to have the US military bases removed from these countries.
[17:17] Speaker 4: Right, I think that's that particular aspect as a non starter.
[17:21] Speaker 4: I think it was put in there just as a
[17:23] Speaker 4: maximum demand. The Golf States are extremely concerned about the negotiations,
[17:29] Speaker 4: and they're concerned about all of the damage and instability
[17:32] Speaker 4: that Iran has inflicted on them unjustly and in very
[17:38] Speaker 4: destructive ways in the course of this war. Now that
[17:43] Speaker 4: they're in it, and now that all of this destruction
[17:47] Speaker 4: has been borne by them, they want to see that
[17:50] Speaker 4: the war ends on terms that are not unduly leaning
[17:55] Speaker 4: towards Iran. They want, as I mentioned, they want the
[17:59] Speaker 4: straight to go back to the position it was in before.
[18:05] Speaker 4: I think they also want to make sure that Iran
[18:08] Speaker 4: doesn't come out of it strengthened with issues of ballistic
[18:12] Speaker 4: missiles and the support for proxies and drones things like that.
[18:18] Speaker 4: Those are going to be the important aspects that the
[18:21] Speaker 4: Gulf States are going to be looking at. And they
[18:23] Speaker 4: need stability to export their oil and to support these
[18:27] Speaker 4: ambitious development programs that they have where they're trying to
[18:30] Speaker 4: diversify their economies away from oil over several decades, and
[18:36] Speaker 4: they need to have stability. They need to have a
[18:39] Speaker 4: foreign investment, and it's going to take a very clever
[18:45] Speaker 4: set of negotiations to allow for that.
[18:47] Speaker 2: I believe that was William Roebuck, former US Ambassador to
[18:50] Speaker 2: Bob Rain, speaking with Bloomberg TV host Sherry On and
[18:54] Speaker 2: Heidi Stroud Watts, bringing you their conversation here on the
[18:57] Speaker 2: Daybreak Asia Podcast. Thanks for listening to today's episode of
[19:04] Speaker 2: the Bloomberg Daybreak Asia Edition podcast. Each weekday, we look
[19:08] Speaker 2: at the story shaping markets, finance, and geopolitics in the
[19:12] Speaker 2: Asia Pacific. You can find us on Apple, Spotify, the
[19:15] Speaker 2: Bloomberg Podcast YouTube channel, or anywhere else you listen. Join
[19:19] Speaker 2: us again tomorrow for insight on the market moves from
[19:22] Speaker 2: Hong Kong to Singapore and Australia. I'm Doug Prisner, and
[19:27] Speaker 2: this is Bloomberg

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.