Will Trump’s shipping insurance plan work?

单集文稿 ...

• 00:11

  This is The Indicator from Planet Money.

• 00:13

  I'm Darren Woods.

• 00:14

  And I'm Paddy Hirsch.

• 00:16

  Right now there's a traffic jam in the Persian Gulf.

• 00:18

  More than a thousand vessels are stuck floating in the warm,

• 00:21

  sun-kissed seas of Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Dubai...

• 00:25

  oil tankers, gas tankers, container ships, bulk goods carriers.

• 00:30

  They're all trapped to the west of what has become the world's most famous trade chokepoint,

• 00:35

  the Strait of Hormuz.

• 00:37

  And there are a lot of reasons why these ships are stuck there, all related to the war with Iran.

• 00:41

  But one of the biggest of all is insurance.

• 00:43

  On today's show,

• 00:44

  we'll learn why the world's most boring financial product has turned into a trade terrorist,

• 00:49

  hijacking the market in oil, which this week briefly soared to over $100 a barrel.

• 00:55

  But don't worry, President Trump has a plan.

• 00:57

  We will look into a solution to open the Strait and bring the price of oil back down after the break.

• 01:22

  Right now, Rachel Ziembez says the Persian Gulf is a mess.

• 01:27

  I would describe it as a parking lot, as pathways that are frozen.

• 01:35

  These are pathways that are normally bustling that now have very few vessels going through.

• 01:43

  Rachel is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security,

• 全部文稿