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• In today’s CEO Daily: The Bridgewater founder describes a more unstable world order in a piece for Fortune
• The big leadership story: Palantir CEO Alex Karp says, don’t worry, the DoD isn’t using AI for mass domestic surveillance
• The markets: Mildly positive across Asia as oil passes $100/barrel
• Plus: All the news and watercooler chat from Fortune.

Good morning. How will AI impact Ray Dalio’s prognosis for the economy? The Bridgewater founder published a piece in Fortune this weekend, in which he argues that we are in stage 5 of what he calls the “Big Cycle.” (The global macro investor has studied the six stages of how major empires rise and fall, with stage 5 being the period prior to collapse.)

Dalio writes that “it is indisputably clear that what is happening now is more analogous to pre-1945 times than the post-1945 times that we have gotten used to, which misleads most people’s expectations and causes them to be shocked about what’s happening.”

Among the hallmarks of stage 5:

 “Large and rapidly rising government debts and geopolitical conflicts that lead to concerns about the value of and security of money, especially of the reserve currency, which drives a movement out of fiat currencies and into gold.” (Gold prices are up 70% over the past year.)

 “Large income, wealth, and values gaps within countries that lead to the rise of populism of the right and populism of the left and irreconcilable differences that can’t be resolved with compromises and rule of law.” (The income gap has increased and, well, look around.)

“The movement from a world order with a dominant power and relative peace to a world order that reflects a great powers conflict.” (Iran could be the final blow to the WTO-based world order.)

Other forces could disrupt or accelerate the Big Cycle: AI is creating a drastic shift of wealth, with the potential to destroy jobs unlike anything we’ve experienced before. Artificial general intelligence could materially change the structure of money and nature of growth while creating faster and more volatile cycles. And one other factor comes to mind, following a fascinating discussion at the Explorers Club on Friday with NYU glaciologist David Holland about the “doomsday” Thwaites glacier in Antarctica: The accelerating pace of climate change, if not addressed, could make that coveted stage 1 seem even further away.

Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

After the U.S. Supreme Court struck down much of President Donald Trump’s tariff regime in February, he threatened to use other legal powers to reimpose import duties on the rest of the world. The world got the first indication of how sweeping those measures would be last week, when the U.S. opened two trade investigations on dozens of countries. Together, the two Section 301 probes—the first on “excess manufacturing capacity,” the second on not doing enough to stop the import of goods made using forced labor—cover 60 different economies, including key trading partners like China, India, Mexico and the European Union. 

On Monday, the Chinese commerce ministry condemned the investigations as “extremely ​unilateral, arbitrary ​and discriminatory, and ​a typical protectionist act”.

“The ‌U.S. has once again abused the 301 investigation process to override domestic law over international rules,” a Chinese spokesperson said. “We urge the U.S. to immediately correct its ​wrong practices, and meet China halfway.”

U.S. and Chinese officials are currently meeting in Paris to hash out the agenda for a meeting between Trump and China President Xi Jinping in early April, even as Trump said he might postpone his visit in an interview with the Financial Times, and demanded Beijing help protect ships traveling through the closed Strait of Hormuz.

Other Asian governments are slowly formulating their response to the new trade investigations.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) said in a media statement that it would “engage the USTR” on the new Section 301 investigations, and disputed its claim that it maintained a large trade surplus with the U.S. 

Taiwan, which was listed in both probes, said it remained “confident” the investigation wouldn’t affect the terms of its U.S. trade deal, agreed last month. 

“It is the government’s abiding goal to bring labor standards in line with international norms,” Taiwan’s cabinet wrote in a press statement released Friday.

Awkwardly, South Korea’s government approved $350 billion in new U.S. investments on March 12, after the U.S. launched its probe of the country’s “excess manufacturing capacity.” The investment pledge was part of the East Asian country’s trade deal with the U.S. announced last year.

Other countries are taking a more forceful approach. On March 15, Malaysia’s minister of Investment, Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Johari Abdul Ghani, called the country’s trade deal with the U.S. “null and void.”

“It is not on hold, it is no longer there,” Datuk Seri told Malaysian reporters at the New Straits Times. “If [the U.S. claims] it is due to a trade surplus, they must specify the industry involved. They cannot impose tariffs on a blanket basis.”

Who in Asia was hit by the Section 301 probes?

Asia has been hit especially hard by Trump’s sweeping trade investigations. 

The first investigation, announced on March 11, accused 16 global economies of maintaining “excess manufacturing capacity.” The majority of countries targeted are in Asia, including regional giants like Japan and China, and Southeast Asian nations like Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Cambodia.

“Asian governments are extremely interested in how this latest trade initiative unfolds,” Deborah Elms, head of trade policy at the Hinrich Foundation, tells Fortune. “Most Asian governments named have in place a trade agreement with the Trump administration, and will want to know how a Section 301 case determination might affect them.”

Many of the economies under scrutiny are export‑led, relying on foreign demand to sustain manufacturing and jobs. “Much of Asia has been very successful selling into the U.S.,” Elms said. “But that leads to high goods trade imbalances, especially if the domestic market is smaller or poorer than the U.S., and imports less stuff from them.”

Just one day later, the U.S. followed up with a second investigation, now covering 60 countries and accusing them of failing to ban the import of goods made with forced labor. The list spans every major region, naming Central and South American nations such as Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela, as well as U.S. allies including Canada and Israel.

“American workers and firms have been forced to compete against foreign producers who may have an artificial cost advantage gained from the scourge of forced labor,” U.S. Trade Representative ​Jamieson Greer said in a press statement. The investigations will determine whether foreign governments have taken sufficient steps to prohibit the import of goods produced with forced labor and how that could affect U.S. firms.

Section 301 allows the USTR to investigate and penalize foreign countries for “unjustifiable, unreasonable, or discriminatory” trade practices. The law has a more stringent regulatory period, which means the procedures must be open for public comment. Previous 301 investigations have taken close to a year to complete, yet Greer has stated that new tariffs could be imposed within five months.

Since the Supreme Court’s ruling, Trump has imposed a blanket 10% tariff on U.S. imports using Section 122, which allows the president to impose tariffs without Congressional approval for up to 150 days.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

There is no question that for many Europeans, work will look different in the coming years. We’ve seen this “ripple effect” with every major technology shift, from computers to the Internet. And while research suggests that far more jobs will be introduced rather than lost, we can’t ignore that there will be disruption – we must prepare for it.

At one end of the spectrum, we know that new technologies like AI have the potential to birth industries and create millions of jobs. Twenty years ago, the concept of a professional YouTube Creator didn’t exist: today, there are upwards of 60 million around the world.

Across Europe, there are estimates that 61% of jobs will be augmented by generative AI – while up to 7% of jobs will make a long-term transition. Those roles, which will be augmented or transition, are the ones we must focus on, ensuring that AI expands, rather than automates, human potential.

In Europe, the stakes are too high to ignore. Broad AI adoption holds the potential to boost the region’s GDP by €1.2 trillion. That’s an 8% increase over the next decade. We’ve already seen promising AI stories emerging across the continent. Spanish startup Idoven is using AI to detect heart disease earlier, while Roly’s in the UK is reimagining fudge recipes and Maria Teresa Pellegrino has used AI to modernize marketing materials for her family’s 100 year old Italian olive oil businesses.

But these gains won’t come automatically. To enable more Idovens, more Roly’s, more Maria’s, Europe’s public sector, non profits, employers and universities must come together to provide European people and businesses with the AI skills they need. 

Today we’re announcing AI Works for Europe: a series of commitments, research and training to support this effort.

AI’s potential impact on entry-level jobs is a major focus area. Over the past year, we supported European social enterprise INCO and nonprofit Chance to examine how AI is reshaping early careers and to develop tailored solutions for Europe’s future workforce. In addition to drawing from comprehensive employment datasets provided by the OECD and the European Commission, INCO used AI to analyse over 31 million job postings, and interviewed over 1,500 UK and EU employers and young jobseekers. They found that nearly 25% of entry-level roles now require AI skills, and that 74% of SME employers struggle to find qualified candidates. The demand is highest in certain fields: AI-related requirements for Accounting & Finance roles have tripled since 2023 and nearly half (41%) of digital marketing and content roles now require AI proficiency at entry level.

In response and with our support, INCO and Chance have created NewFutures:AI, a set of advanced AI curriculums for final-year students: helping them build practical skills and access career support, especially in the sectors that need it most. The curriculum will be offered directly to students for free through partnerships with fifty higher education institutions across Europe.

But we can’t just focus on the future workforce – we need to to upskill current workers. 

Since 2015, we have trained over 21 million Europeans (including Brits) on digital or AI skills. These trainings work: our foundational course, Google AI Essentials, has become the most popular course on Coursera of all time, and 80% of certificate graduates in the EU report a positive career outcome within six months of completion: a new job, promotion or raise.

New research from IPSOS suggests that AI literacy —the ability to understand, evaluate, and make decisions about AI  — is vital to driving adoption. We need to move from a surface level understanding of AI to a more substantive use of AI as a collaborator. We’ve just released a new Google AI Professional Certificate focused on just that: moving people and businesses from AI foundations to fluency. The certificate is available now globally in English, and will be translated in ten European languages in the coming months.

Creating these resources alone isn’t enough, partnering with trusted community organizations is what’s going to help us drive broad and equitable access. That’s why we’re supporting local nonprofits like Talents for Tech and AI Sweden to share the certificate and wraparound resources with 50,000 workers across Europe through local trade unions and community organizations.

Significant change is coming. Together, across the public and private sector, we need to invest in people: ensuring they have the AI skills of tomorrow. Just as the internet unlocked new ways to work and build businesses, we need to empower people to innovate with AI. 

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

Just two months ago, NATO was in the middle of an existential crisis over President Donald Trump’s insistence that the U.S. take control of Greenland. He threatened tariffs and refused to rule out military action, but eventually backed down.

Then on Sunday, Trump demanded the alliance help him clear the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blocked since the U.S. and Israel launched their war on the Islamic republic two weeks ago.

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the Strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the Financial Times, while also saying he could delay his summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response I think it will be very bad for the future of NATO.” 

After he precipitated the Greenland crisis this year and launched a trade war last year, allies have been re-evaluating the global order and their long-term future with the U.S.

Trump admitted to the FT that he’s pessimistic about U.S. allies coming to his aid. But he suggested NATO owes him, despite years of berating member states for not spending more on defense and even belittling their losses fighting with the U.S. in Afghanistan.

“We’ve been very sweet,” Trump said. “We didn’t have to help them with Ukraine. Ukraine is thousands of miles away from us … But we helped them. Now we’ll see if they help us. Because I’ve long said that we’ll be there for them but they won’t be there for us. And I’m not sure that they’d be there.”

He explained that NATO help could come in the form of minesweepers or commandos, and downplayed the military threat that Iran poses. While Iran’s military has indeed been decimated by U.S. and Israeli bombardment, it still packs enough punch to scare commercial shipping away from the Strait of Hormuz.

Iran seize gatekeeper role

But Tehran is also signaling that the strait isn’t totally closed and that it wields the power to choose who may pass, as the U.S. military has yet to re-establish free navigation through the narrow waterway.

Oil prices have soared as Iran’s attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf have created a de facto blockade over the strait, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquid natural gas flow, with Wall Street warning crude could even hit $150 a barrel in a prolonged conflict.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Sunday that vessels from different countries have already been allowed to transit the strait and that a number of governments have approached Tehran about securing safe passage for their ships.

“I cannot mention any country in particular,” he told on CBS News. “And this is up to our military to decide.”

Reports have indicated that Iran is getting its oil shipments out to top customer China, while hundreds of tankers carrying supplies from other countries remain bottled up in the Gulf.

That keeps critical revenue rolling into Iran. By contrast, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and other top producers have been forced to pump less with nowhere left to stash their output.

Meanwhile, Trump ordered an attack on military sites on Kharg Island, Iran’s top oil export node, upping the ante of escalation. He is also trying to assemble a naval coalition to reopen the strait. Sources told the Wall Street Journal on Sunday that the administration could soon announce an escort mission that involves multiple countries, though it wasn’t clear if operations would begin before or after hostilities end.

Trump earlier called on China, France, Japan, South Korea, Britain and others to send warships to the Middle East, though responses have been non-committal so far. At the same time, the U.K. and the Gulf Cooperation Council said member states “have the right to take all necessary measures to defend their security and stability and protect their territories, citizens and residents.”

But the Strait of Hormuz remains contested waters, and U.S. Navy officials have called it a “kill box” where Iran’s missiles, aerial drones, underwater drones, surface drones, mines, and small fast-attack boats pose numerous threats. Given the risks to multibillion-dollar warships, the Navy has turned down requests from shipping companies to provide protection.

European officials are considering a naval mission to the Strait of Hormuz but admit that their current effort to protect shipping in the Red Sea “hasn’t been effective.”

“That’s why I’m very skeptical whether an expansion of Aspides into the Strait of Hormuz could provide more security,” German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said, adding that Germany won’t take an active role in the war.

‘All U.S. response options are suboptimal’

Defense experts say a proper naval escort mission would require more ships as well as air power and perhaps ground troops to neutralize Iranian threats.

The Strait of Hormuz is navigationally constrained, and reaction times to attacks from the coast are short, according to Jennifer Parker, founder of Barrier Strategic Advisory and a veteran of the Royal Australian Navy.

As a result, escort operations at scale would require significant numbers of warships, plus combat air patrols that would take aircraft away from other missions, she added in a threat on X on Saturday.

“Responding to coastal launch sites as they emerge would require coordinated strike operations ashore and perhaps marines — the latter a clear escalation risk,” Parker wrote. “Without significantly degrading Iran’s UAV and USV capability, escorts alone are unlikely to enable the safe transit of large numbers of tankers.”

Then there’s the problem of clearing any mines in the strait. Despite the U.S. wiping out Iran’s navy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps can still use small boats to deploy mines, and not many are needed to scare away commercial traffic.

The U.S. also shrank its minesweeping fleet, and its remaining ships are stationed in Asia. A new class of littoral combat ship was designed to handle minesweeping missions, but it has yet to be used in combat.

“Historically, mine clearance has been slow, and it is almost impossible to do under fire,” MIT political science professor Caitlin Talmadge wrote in Foreign Affairs on Friday. 

Like Parker, she said defending the strait in the middle of a shooting war may require the U.S. to take control of the Iranian coast by inserting Marines or special operations forces.

In fact, the U.S. is deploying a Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Mideast with more than 2,000 troops, though some analysts have raised the possibility of an amphibious attack on Kharg Island.

“In short, if Iran effectively mines the strait, all U.S. response options are suboptimal,” Talmadge warned. “The United States should therefore focus aggressively on preventing Iranian mine-laying in the first place and finding an off-ramp from the larger war. If it does not, Washington should expect that ongoing harassment of traffic in the strait will be but one of a number of responses that Iran has long prepared and will now deploy.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

The CEOs of the nation’s top airline companies, including American, Delta, Southwest and JetBlue, are imploring Congress to restore funding to the Department of Homeland Security and embrace a bipartisan solution to pay federal aviation workersincluding airport security officers during the partial government shutdown.

“Once again, air travel is the political football amid another government shutdown,” the executives wrote in an open letter to Congress that was published Sunday online and in The Washington Post.

The letter, which was also signed by the CEOs of the cargo companies UPS, FedEx and Atlas Air, said that Congress should pass the Aviation Funding Solvency Act and the Aviation Funding Stability Act, which would guarantee air traffic controllers are paid regardless of the government’s funding status, as well as the Keep America Flying Act. That measure would offer the same protections to Transportation Security Administration officers tasked to provide security and to screen all travelers.

”It’s difficult, if not impossible, to put food on the table, put gas in the car and pay rent when you are not getting paid,” the letter said.

The current partial shutdown affects only the Department of Homeland Security, which includes TSA. Democrats in Congress refused to fund the department over objections to its immigration enforcement tactics. The lapse marks the third shutdown in less than a year to leave TSA workers temporarily without pay — and once the government reopens, to have to wait for back pay.

Democratic lawmakers have said DHS won’t get funded until new restrictions are placed on federal immigration operations following the fatal shootings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good in Minneapolis earlier this year.

The CEOs noted that with spring break in full swing, FIFA’s World Cup 2026 approaching and celebrations for America’s 250th birthday throughout the year, the stakes are high. The letter said that U.S. airlines expect 171 million passengers this spring season.

As the latest partial shutdown drags on, there have been long security lines at a growing number of U.S airports.

The TSA and Homeland Security have consistently blamed Democrats for the long security lines.

Homeland Security posted on its X account last week that more than 300 TSA agents have quit since the start of the shutdown.

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, pressure is growing on the person in the best position to end it: Donald Trump.

But the US president’s ever-shifting explanations for why he went to war leave friends and adversaries at a loss to forecast when he’ll be ready to stop. And even if he does, Iran has shown little willingness to go along. Trump has gone from declaring the war over soon to calling on European and Gulf allies to help. They’re reluctant, and the likes of Russia are benefiting.

The state of play was exemplified by a recent call with Group of Seven leaders where Trump was repeatedly pressed by European counterparts about his endgame, according to people familiar with the exchange. He said he couldn’t discuss the war’s objectives on the call, but told the leaders he had several in mind and wanted the conflict to end soon. 

The past 48 hours have only deepened the confusion among once-stalwart allies.

Conversations with several officials since Trump told Fox News that the war would end when he felt it “in my bones” paint a picture of bewilderment and shock. No one seems ready to rally to his call to deploy scant resources to help reopen the virtually shut Strait of Hormuz, the conduit for a fifth of global ​oil and a large share of liquefied natural gas. Meanwhile, the backchannels to Iran are proliferating as countries, from India to Turkey, seek their own safe passage to get ships through Hormuz.

Even Japan, which rarely wants to appear out of lockstep with the US, said through a senior official that efforts to escort ships face “high hurdles.” That amounts to a polite “no” that reverberates across countries the US failed to consult on the war that it launched Feb. 28 and is now set to last several weeks.

Read More: US, Iran Keep Up Strikes as Trump Mulls Possibility of Deal

The Trump administration is planning to announce as soon as this week that multiple countries have agreed to form a coalition to escort ships through the corridor, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal, which adds that it’s unclear whether operations would begin during or after the fighting.

Tehran’s forces fire missiles and drones daily at targets across the Mideast despite punishing US and Israeli attacks – and Trump’s claims of victory. Iran’s stranglehold on shipping in the strait has driven oil prices over $100 a barrel, shaking economies worldwide and threatening Trump’s political prospects at home. Even one of Trump’s own advisers went public Friday calling on him to declare victory and end the fighting.

The latest escalation in US military operations may represent the peak of US operations — an intense surge designed to degrade remaining Iranian capabilities, according to European officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss their governments’ views.

While they discount as exaggerated Trump’s claims that the strikes have destroyed Iran’s military capabilities, the European officials see that rhetoric as potentially laying the groundwork for Washington to declare the operation complete. 

“There are strong motivators on all sides to conclude the military phase of the mission expeditiously,” said Victoria Coates, a former Trump deputy national security adviser now at the Heritage Foundation. It is Trump who has “dominant leverage to set the terms of any negotiations,” she added.

A senior Arabian Gulf official warned that it would ultimately only be the sustained rise in oil prices that would force Trump to stop fighting and claim victory, leaving regional allies to deal with the residual threat from a wounded and angry Iran.

For the moment, Trump is vowing to continue the campaign, claiming he’s not ready for a deal — though Iran is. Officials in Tehran remain convinced they can outlast the mercurial US leader, but the damage is mounting.

Read More: Stock Trader’s Guide to Navigating Supply Disruption by Iran War

Trump pivoted sharply over the weekend to calling for other countries to join the fray to reopen the strait — a possibility seen in those capitals as ranging from questionable to fanciful. From his Florida golf course, Trump sent a string of mixed messages on social media, calling for support in a war he’s said repeatedly he’s won, and for help in a strait his administration has insisted remains open. He claimed Saturday that Iran wanted a deal, which Iran dismissed.

But Trump’s attempt to wave away concerns with declarations of swift military victory and economic recovery has been stretched thin, with at least 13 Americans killed so far and Trump forced to scramble to ease oil price spikes that further imperil Republicans’ fortunes in a midterm election year. So far, administration efforts to ease the oil-market impact haven’t led to a lasting drop in prices.

Over the weekend, the White House reiterated that the campaign was planned to last four to six weeks but is ahead of schedule. “We expect that the global economy is going to have a big positive shock as soon as this is over,” National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CBS’s Face the Nation. 

Read More: Oil Market Set for Tumultuous Week as Kharg Attack Raises Stakes

Trump’s own political coalition is showing signs of strain. David Sacks, Trump’s AI czar, said on a podcast published Friday that he agreed “we should try to find the off-ramp,” saying Iran’s military has been degraded. “This is a good time to declare victory and get out, and that is clearly what the markets would like to see,” he said, warning the conflict could spiral further.

And Vice President JD Vance, an avowed skeptic of foreign incursions, has neither embraced the endeavor fully nor criticized it publicly. 

Still, Senator Lindsey Graham, a staunch Trump ally and proxy, praised Trump’s decision to bomb parts of Kharg Island, ending a social media post Saturday with the words of the motto of the US Marine Corps – a nod to the possibility that the US may soon deploy troops on the ground. The US is sending a Marine Expeditionary Unit to the region, officials said Friday.

The US struck military targets on the island, but left intact its oil facilities, which carry the bulk of Iran’s exports.

The International Energy Agency has warned the war may already represent the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market. US gasoline prices have already risen sharply — about 65 cents a gallon since the war began. Public support for the war also appears limited, with recent polls showing Americans divided or leaning against the conflict.

“He was hoping this would be a very quick war,” Vali Nasr, an Iran specialist and former Obama administration official who is now a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told Bloomberg’s Mishal Husain. “Now this war has gone out of his control. It’s longer, messier and is exacting a cost.”

Read More: Why Iran Isn’t Breaking 

Some Gulf officials say they have little visibility into Washington’s plans and privately express frustration that the war was launched without meaningful consultation. They say the conflict has underscored how little influence Gulf governments currently have over decisions driving the war, despite their efforts to court the Trump administration with pledges of investment.

“The Gulf states want normalcy: peace and calm to refocus on their national transformation plans,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor at Kuwait University and an associate fellow at Chatham House. “That requires a major reset to their security arrangements with Western partners and it also requires dialog with Iran.”

Read More: Gulf Economies at Risk of Worst Slump Since 1990s on Iran War

The war may prove difficult to end for a simple reason: Washington and Tehran are measuring victory by very different standards.

For all the US success in striking Iranian military targets, Tehran still has ways to hit back. Even with much of its conventional power damaged, Iran can impose costs through proxy attacks, harassment of shipping and disruption to regional energy flows.

Iran does not need to defeat the US militarily to claim success: Surviving the war may be enough.

“Their calculation is that this is about who has a higher threshold of pain,” said Nasr, the Iran specialist. “They think the United States and Israel can dash a lot faster, but they’re not really long-distance runners.”

Iranian officials have also made clear they are not seeking a quick ceasefire. Senior leaders have framed the conflict as a moment to restore deterrence against the US and Israel and ensure Iran cannot be attacked again.

Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said last week the country’s goal was to continue an “effective defense that makes the enemy regret” its actions. “We will extract reparations,” he said in a written statement.

“They may well think they’ve crossed a Rubicon in terms of their ability to inflate the world oil price with relatively simple means,” said Simon Gass, a former UK ambassador to Iran.

Still, countries including Oman, Saudi Arabia and Turkey are exploring channels to reduce tensions and stabilize shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, while European governments are trying to keep back channels open with Iranian intermediaries, officials said.

So far, the efforts remain tentative. European officials say Iran has focused its early messages on two demands: compensation for wartime damage and guarantees against future attacks. Both are likely to be non-starters with the White House. 

At the same time, the battlefield could still widen. Israel has expanded operations in Lebanon, while Iraqi militias have signaled a new phase of attacks on US and other foreign targets — leaving any diplomatic opening fragile.

An end to the fighting may also come without negotiations, if Trump decides he’s achieved his goals – or had enough pain.

“The president has destroyed most of Iran’s military and naval power and set back its nuclear program for years,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as the Trump administration’s special representative for Iran. “He could stop any time he decides to do so and claim a victory.”

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com

When IRGC brigadier-general Ebrahim Jabari declared the Strait of Hormuz to be closed, 150 oil and LNG tankers decided to stay put rather than risk getting fired upon. Qatar Energy and other oil and gas producers soon halted production, declaring force majeure. The effect on Asia was immediate, with LNG benchmarks jumping 39% in just one session and governments now frantically ordering staff to work-from-home to save energy.

The threat to Asia had been obvious for years. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimated that, in 2024, over 80% of the crude and LNG that transited Hormuz went to Asian markets. China, India, Japan, and South Korea accounted for nearly 70% of all Hormuz crude flows. Saudi Arabia and the UAE can only send about 2.6 million barrels of crude oil a day through bypass pipelines, not enough to offset the 20 million barrels per day now stuck. It’s even worse for LNG: There’s no way to get it out if Hormuz is closed.  

If Asian countries want a solution to their energy woes in the Middle East, perhaps they should look, well, to the east—across the Pacific to energy sources in North America, and Canada in particular.

Canada’s new Pacific energy infrastructure, from the Shell‑led LNG Canada project in Kitimat to the expanded Trans Mountain pipeline feeding crude to tankers near Vancouver, offers Asian buyers a faster, cheaper and geopolitically safer route that can skip Hormuz and other chokepoints like Malacca and the South China Sea, altogether.

A different map already exists

There’s no technological fix for geography, as author Robert D. Kaplan argued in his 2012 book, The Revenge of Geography. The only solution is a different map—and for Asia’s energy buyers, that different map is on Canada’s Pacific coast.

LNG Canada in Kitimat, British Columbia, shipped its first cargo in June 2025, making Canada an LNG‑exporting nation for the first time. Cargoes load directly into the North Pacific and reach Northeast Asian terminals without passing through the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Malacca, or the South China Sea, all potential chokepoints for energy trade.

Canadian crude from Alberta now moves west through the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) pipeline, which came online in May 2024 and has nearly tripled maximum capacity to 890,000 barrels per day. Since startup, shipments from the Westridge Marine Terminal near Vancouver have helped triple Canadian crude exports to non‑US destinations, with Asia—particularly China—emerging as a key buyer.

The Alberta‑to‑Asia route does not rely on Hormuz or Malacca, and it originates in a jurisdiction perceived as politically stable. Importantly, Canada is low-risk and—one hopes—unlikely to be beset by conflict any time soon.

Why not the United States?

The U.S., the world’s largest LNG exporter, can’t help gas-hungry Asian buyers. The reason, again, is geography. The U.S.’s LNG export terminals are on the Gulf Coast or the East Coast; none are on the Pacific Coast. It can take up to 24 days to get an LNG tanker from the Gulf Coast, through the Panama Canal, and to Japan. Shipping from Kitimat in Canada takes just 11 days.

Canadian LNG from Kitimat takes roughly 10 to 11 days, at a delivered cost of under $1/MMBtu versus $2/MMBtu or more via Panama, according to energy research firm RBN Energy. Canada’s route is shorter, cheaper and avoids congestion in the Canal.

Washington is building the Alaska LNG project, an 800-mile pipeline from North Slope gas fields to a liquefaction terminal at Nikiski on Cook Inlet. It’s got support from the Trump administration, federal permits, and letters of intent from JERA and POSCO. But Alaska LNG still lacks binding long-term contracts, and some estimates put the cost at more than $70 billion. Even if construction begins as planned in late 2026, the first LNG exports won’t be ready until 2031 at the earliest—and that assumes everything goes right.

In contrast, LNG Canada Phase 1 is operational, and ready to serve Asian buyers, today.

The window is this year

The next tranche of Canadian LNG is about to come online. LNG Canada Phase 12 will provide a further 14 million tonnes per annum through a JV that includes Shell, Mitsubishi, Korea Gas Corporation, Petronas, and PetroChina; a final investment decision is expected by late 2026 or early 2027. Ksi Lisims LNG, near Prince Rupert, has cleared all regulatory approvals. If both proceed, Canada’s total Pacific LNG export capacity will exceed 40 million tonnes per annum by the early 2030s.

Asian utilities and importers—from JERA and INPEX to CNOOC, GAIL, CPC Taiwan and Singapore’s EMA—that lock in 20‑ to 40‑year contracts will have structural insurance against the next Hormuz‑related supply shock that will look extraordinarily cheap in hindsight.

And they’d find a willing partner in Ottawa, which is actively encouraging Asian participation as part of a broader effort to diversify energy exports away from an over‑reliance on the U.S. market.

The tankers anchored outside Hormuz and the burning facilities at Ras Laffan are a live demonstration of what happens when energy security relies on a 33-kilometer wide passage flanked by a hostile power.

Asia’s energy buyers need to find an alternative—and fortunately, they have one in Canada.

The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of Fortune.

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Andrej Karpathy used AI to gauge which U.S. professions are most vulnerable to the technology amid growing fears that a jobs apocalypse may be headed for the economy.

Over the weekend, the OpenAI cofounder and former director of AI at Tesla posted a graphic showing how susceptible every occupation is to Al and automation, using Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Different jobs received scores on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being most exposed.

While the overall weighted exposure was 4.9, Karpathy’s data also showed that professions earning more than $100,000 a year had the worst average score (6.7), while the those earning less than $35,000 had the lowest exposure (3.4).

His chart quickly drew attention online, with many predicting doom for white-collar workers. But Karpathy soon removed the data.

“This was a saturday morning 2 hour vibe coded project inspired by a book I’m reading,” he explained on X on Sunday morning. “I thought the code/data might be helpful to others to explore the BLS dataset visually, or color it in different ways or with different prompts or add their own visualizations. It’s been wildly misinterpreted (which I should have anticipated even despite the readme docs) so I took it down.”

He didn’t respond to questions about how it’s been misinterpreted and what the correct interpretation should be.

Still, an archived version of the chart may not be much of a shocker as it echoes what others have been saying about how AI could shape the U.S. labor market.

For example, software developers, computer programmers, database administrators, data scientists, mathematicians, financial analysts, paralegals, writers, editors, graphic designers, and market researchers got scores of 9.

That’s as sophisticated AI tools are increasingly being used to crunch numbers and produce content, performing tasks in minutes that used to require knowledge workers hours, days, or even weeks to do.

While AI is seen as a productivity enhancer for experienced employees, evidence is mounting that companies have less need for entry-level workers. More companies are also announcing layoffs and citing AI, though skeptics see it as a scapegoat to correct pandemic-era overhiring.

Meanwhile, Karpathy’s chart showed that construction laborers, roofers, painters, janitors, ironworkers, and grounds maintenance workers got scores of just 1. Similarly, home healthcare aides, nursing assistants, massage therapists, dental hygienists, veterinary assistants, manicurists, barbers, and bartenders got scores of 2.

Earlier this month, AI startup Anthropic issued a report entitled “Labor market impacts of AI: A new measure and early evidence,” that found actual AI adoption is just a fraction of what AI tools are feasibly capable of performing.

Like Karpathy’s data, Anthropic’s paper said AI can theoretically cover most tasks in business and finance, management, computer science, math, legal, and office administration roles. While AI adoption is still lagging, Anthropic said the workers most at risk are older, highly educated and well paid.

And earlier this year, a viral essay by Citrini Research painted a catastrophic picture of an economy destroyed by AI, sparking a stock market selloff.

But Citadel Securities swiftly debunked the doomsday scenario in a blistering report, pointing out that Indeed job posting data shows demand for software engineers is actually up 11% year over year so far in 2026.

Citadel also noted that the daily use of generative AI for work remains “unexpectedly stable” and currently “presents little evidence of any imminent displacement risk.” Instead of a collapsing economy, new business formation in the U.S. is rapidly expanding, and the construction of massive AI data centers is currently driving a localized boom in construction hiring.

Furthermore, if automation expanded at the breakneck pace Citrini fears, demand for compute would inherently rise, pushing up its marginal cost. 

“If the marginal cost of compute rises above the marginal cost of human labor for certain tasks, substitution will not occur, creating a natural economic boundary,” Citadel said.

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In 2024, Sydney tech entrepreneur Paul Conyngham found out his dog Rosie had cancer. But after attacking the diagnosis with chemotherapy and surgery, the tumors persisted and Rosie got sicker.

So he turned to AI and eventually developed a custom a mRNA cancer vaccine with the help of Australian scientists. Most of Rosie’s tumors have shrunk, and the dog is back chasing rabbits.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT suggested immunotherapy and directed Conyngham to the University of New South Wales Ramaciotti Center for Genomics, according to a report in the Australian.

While Conyngham doesn’t have a background in medicine, he is an electrical and computing engineer who cofounded Core Intelligence Technologies. He was also a director for the Data Science and AI Association of Australia.

After reaching out to university, he convinced researchers there to help him and paid UNSW for Rosie’s genomic sequencing. Then he started digging into the DNA.

“I went to ChatGPT and came up with a plan on how to do this,” Conyngham told the Australian.

He also used AlphaFold, an AI tool from Google’s DeepMind, to find mutated proteins that could be potential targets for treatment. While an immunotherapy treatment that looked like a good fit for Rosie was identified, the drugmaker wouldn’t provide it.

Then nanomedicine medicine pioneer Pall Thordarson, director of UNSW’s RNA Institute, stepped in and used Conyngham’s data to develop a bespoke mRNA vaccine in less than two months.

“This is the first time a personalized cancer vaccine has been designed for a dog,” he told the Australian. “This is still at the frontier of where cancer immunotherapeutics are—and ultimately, we’re going to use this for helping humans. What Rosie is teaching us is that personalized medicine can be very effective, and done in a time-sensitive manner, with mRNA technology.”

Rosie got her first injection of the cancer treatment this past December, then received a booster in February. Most of her tumors have already shrunk dramatically. And while they haven’t disappeared, Rosie’s health has improved.

In a thread on X Saturday, Thordarson said Rosie’s story demonstrates that technology can “democratize” the process of designing cancer vaccines.

He cautioned that Rosie may not be cured as some tumors haven’t responded to the vaccine, though it bought her more time. Still, Conyngham will take it.

“In December she had low energy because the tumors were creating a huge burden for her,” he told the Australian. “Six weeks post-treatment, I was at the dog park when she spotted a rabbit and jumped the fence to chase it. I’m under no illusion that this is a cure, but I do believe this ­treatment has bought Rosie significantly more time and quality of life.”

Rosie’s journey has stunned some people in the tech world while also pointing to AI’s potential to produce breakthroughs in medicine, perhaps turning diagnoses once considered death sentences into routine ailments.

Matt Shumer, cofounder and CEO of OthersideAI, took to X over the weekend to flag a story about Conyngham and his dog.

“This is what I mean when I say the world is going to get very weird, very soon,” he wrote. “Expect more stories like this, each sounding increasingly more insane.”

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Energy Secretary Chris Wright signaled the war with Iran may last several more weeks with oil and gasoline prices elevated as the US and Israel seek to destroy Iranian military capabilities.

In network television interviews Sunday, Wright defended the Trump administration’s argument that Americans are facing short-term pain at the pump in a midterm election year for the larger goal of eliminating Iran as a threat to the Middle East.

“I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks — could be sooner that that — and we’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that,” Wright said Sunday on ABC’s This Week.

Oil closed at more than $103 per barrel on Friday as Iran retains a chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz, normally a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and a similar portion of liquefied natural gas. 

President Donald Trump on Saturday called on other countries to send warships to keep the strait open, saying he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea and the UK would take part. A senior official in Japan’s governing party said sending Japanese navy vessels to the Middle East to escort tankers would face “high hurdles.”

Wright said he has been in talks with the countries Trump mentioned, though he didn’t elaborate. “Clearly we will have this support of other nations to achieve that objective,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

Wright said the Trump administration was aware that going to war against Iran would cause “short-term disruption” and “a little bit of increased prices on Americans.”

“So this is short-term pain to get through to a much better place,” he told ABC. “But first and foremost right now is to finish to destroy Iran’s ability to project military force in the region and around the world.”

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Representatives from Beijing and Washington began their economic and trade talks in Paris on Sunday, paving the way for U.S. President Donald Trump’s state visit to Beijing to meet Chinese leader Xi Jinping in about two weeks.

The delegations, led by U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng, convened in the French capital in the morning, China’s official news agency Xinhua reported. The White House has said that Trump will travel to China from March 31 to April 2, though Beijing has not officially confirmed it.

Bessent said on Thursday that his team will continue to deliver results that put America’s farmers, workers and businesses first. The U.S. Treasury Department said Bessent will meet He on Sunday and Monday.

China’s commerce ministry said Friday the two sides are set to discuss “trade and economic issues of mutual concern.”

Trump’s visit to China will be the first for a U.S. president since he went in his first term in 2017. It will come five months after the two leaders met in the South Korean city of Busan and agreed to a one-year truce in a trade war that temporarily saw tit-for-tat tariffs soar to triple digits before the two sides climbed down.

Still, trade remains a source of tensions. The commerce ministry on Friday hit back against the Trump administration’s new trade investigation into 16 trading partners, including China. The investigation — which came after a Supreme Court ruling struck down Trump’s sweeping global tariffs that were imposed last year — could pave the way for new tariffs.

Another issue that could be discussed is the Iran war, especially when global anxiety is soaring over oil prices and supplies. Trump said Saturdaythat he hopes China, France, Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom and others will send warships to keep the Strait of Hormuz “open and safe.”

Before Sunday’s talks, Gary Ng, a senior economist at French bank Natixis and a research fellow at the Central European Institute of Asian Studies, said the Paris meeting is likely the most important bilateral one before the Xi-Trump summit.

The key issue is “whether China and the U.S. can agree on what is agreed and manage disagreement. Iran is a new factor, but Beijing is more concerned about the flip-flopping of U.S. policies,” he said.

Last week, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said it would be a “big year” for China-U.S. relations. While he did not confirm the state visit, Wang said that “the agenda of high-level exchange is already on the table.”

Bessent and He have led trade negotiations between the countries since last year, having met in Geneva, London, Stockholm, Madrid and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

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