00:00Let's get the latest when it comes to where these negotiations are at with the president saying that
00:04he's called off a planned strike as they work towards a diplomatic situation, a solution I
00:11should say. Let's get more from our economic statecraft lead at Lindbergh Economics, Chris
00:14Kennedy. And Chris, how much weight do you put in terms of these comments, these posts on true
00:21social, the to and fro? Because every day there seems to be sort of new rhetoric, but not a great
00:27deal of substantive development. So I think that's about where we are. I don't think we're putting
00:34much weight at all on this recent social media missive from the president. It's sort of odd,
00:40you know, announcing not doing something like this when we weren't necessarily expecting imminent
00:46strikes. But underlying this is the reality that both Tehran and Washington are quite far apart
00:52from one another on preconditions for negotiations even. And so what we see right now is that we're
00:59in this sort of protracted stalemate. I think we anticipate we could see some additional strikes
01:04at some point in the near future, probably limited, given that Washington likely is concerned that a
01:12massive attack could result in, you know, a response by Iran that would severely disrupt
01:17additional energy and other infrastructure in the region. Chris, so what are the signals that we
01:23should be watching out for? Because in the meantime, we are seeing actual winners from this
01:27war, like the likes of Russia, who got another oil waiver extension. Yeah. And so that additional
01:35waiver that was granted. So this is the third waiver that's been given for oil on the water,
01:39stranded oil, as Secretary Besant referred to it. You know, to me, that is a signal that the
01:46administration does not expect oil markets to normalize, at least for the next 30 days while
01:52that waiver is in place. And I imagine that some oil traders who are considering whether or not to,
01:59you know, re-engage with Russian oil are looking at this and anticipating that absent a breakthrough,
02:05we might see additional waivers forthcoming. In terms of other signals that we might be looking for,
02:12you know, it's really hard to tell. Obviously, if we get to a point of, you know, hard negotiations,
02:19and we start to see some traffic again flowing through the strait, that would be a good sign.
02:24But for right now, it seems we're in this sort of war of words, very little traffic getting through
02:29the strait, oil inventories being depleted globally. And it's a bit of a stalemate.
02:35And it's a bit of a stalemate.
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