Luke Vargas (2:17)

One such mission that Trump is considering would involve seizing almost 1,000 pounds of

Wall Street Journal Reporter (2:22)

uranium from Iran, a complex task that

Luke Vargas (2:24)

could put American forces inside the country for days or longer.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (2:28)

We report that Trump hasn't made a decision on whether to give the order, but remains open to the idea since it could prevent Iran from making a nuclear weapon in the future. White House press secretary Caroline Levitt said it was the Pentagon's job to draft a range of options for the president and that it didn't mean he had made a decision. The Pentagon didn't comment on the potential operation, and A spokesman for U.S. central Command declined to comment.

Luke Vargas (2:53)

Meanwhile, the war escalated on several fronts over the weekend, with Yemen's Houthi rebels attacking Israel for the first time on

Wall Street Journal Reporter (2:59)

Saturday following through on a threat to intervene unless the US And Israel ended fighting. Israel said that it intercepted a pair of drones from Yemen overnight as it continues to face missile and rocket fire from Iran and Hezbollah. The Houthi attacks come as Israel has begun rationing its high end missile interceptors, hoping to preserve supplies of its most capable defensive weapons after four weeks of

Luke Vargas (3:22)

fighting and aluminum prices are soaring after Iran struck a pair of key producers in Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (3:30)

Aluminum Bahrain said it's assessing damage to its facility, while the owner of the Emirati plant said had sustained significant damage. Excluding Iran, the Gulf smelted about 8% of the world's aluminum last year.

Luke Vargas (3:44)

While hoping to end the war, Pakistan is pushing to get the US And

Wall Street Journal Reporter (3:48)

Iran to the negotiating table. Its offer to host potential talks comes after it helped Washington to pass a U.S. peace plan on to Iran last week and marks a return to prominence for a country once isolated by Washington for harboring Osama bin Laden and which was dismissed by Trump in his first term as being a bad faith actor. Pakistan's foreign minister yesterday described the relationship as being on more solid ground.

Pakistan Foreign Minister (4:12)

Pakistan will be honored to host and facilitate meaningful talks between the two sides in coming days for a comprehensive and lasting settlement of the ongoing conflict.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (4:24)

Speaking to reporters last night, President Trump didn't specifically mention the Pakistan talks, but said the US Was negotiating both directly and indirectly with Iran

Luke Vargas (4:36)

well closer to America's shores. President Trump has eased his stance on

Wall Street Journal Reporter (4:40)

the Cuba oil blockade, telling reporters that he has no problem with countries including Russia shipping oil to the island amid ongoing blackouts.

President Donald Trump (4:49)

It's not going to have an impact. Cuba's finished, they have a bad regime, they have very bad and corrupt leadership, and whether or not they get a boat of oil, it's not going to matter. I'd prefer letting it in whether it's Russia or anybody else, because the people need heat and cooling.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (5:08)

The move comes as a sanctioned Russian tanker carrying almost three quarters of a million barrels of oil prepares to dock in Cuba tomorrow. Experts say the shipment could produce enough diesel to meet demand in Cuba for nine or ten days.

Luke Vargas (5:22)

And back in the U.S. long lines remained a fixture at airports across the

Wall Street Journal Reporter (5:26)

country over the weekend, despite President Trump's

Luke Vargas (5:28)

executive order directing officials to pay TSA

Wall Street Journal Reporter (5:31)

workers, many of whom continue not to show up to work. The Department of Homeland Security said that some workers could get paid today amid the ongoing standoff in Congress on funding the department. Speaking on CBS's Face the Nation, meanwhile, White House border czar Tom Homan said that ICE agents will remain at airports.

Tom Homan (5:50)

ICE is there to help our brothers and sisters in tsa. We'll be there as long as they need us until they get back to normal operation and feel like those airports are secure.

Luke Vargas (5:59)

Coming up with its energy links to the Gulf disrupted, Europe looks for new sources of gas and Eli lilly bets

Wall Street Journal Reporter (6:05)

on AI's potential to discover new drugs. Those stories and more after the break.

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Wall Street Journal Reporter (6:32)

First it was the Ukraine war, and now Iran. Journal energy security reporter Matthew Dalton reports that Europe is back in a familiar pickle as conflict sends it scrambling yet again to track down reliable and affordable energy sources.

Luke Vargas (6:46)

Matt, we're talking here about natural gas,

Wall Street Journal Reporter (6:48)

something we discussed in the context a little bit more for Asia than we have for Europe. So give us the latest for Europe.

Matthew Dalton (6:54)

Well, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe decided to cut back dramatically on buying Russian gas via pipelines that connect Russia to the European Union. And they largely replaced that gas with liquefied natural gas from the United States and a few other places. This is gas that is put into pressurized vessels that can cool it into a liquid and transfer it across the ocean. And so the Iran war has knocked off all of Qatar's LNG production, which is about 20% of all global supply. Most of US LNG exports go to Europe in normal times. However, without Qatari lng, Asian economy started bidding for those cargoes. And so there were cargoes that were bound for different places in Europe and suddenly turned around and headed to Asia. So now the entire continent has a problem because they must pay a lot more for LNG than they were doing before the war.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (7:55)

So how are European countries reacting?

Matthew Dalton (7:57)

Well, Italy is looking to its biggest supplier of gas, which is Algeria, just across the Mediterranean. It is North Africa's biggest gas producer.

Matthew Dalton (8:07)

And there is the possibility for some more supply to go through the pipeline to Italy, but it's not a huge amount. It's definitely not going to offset what Europe was getting or what the global economy was getting from Qatar. So Algeria can only do so much, and it does have two major economies that are partially depending on it. You know, one thing, though, that separates Spain from Italy, interestingly, is that Spain has done a lot to build out renewables and so relies less on gas, and Italy has been quite slow to do so. And so they're much more dependent on gas than most other economies in Europe. So Italy is really feeling the pinch in particular, but the gas is out there. The US has enough gas to export to Europe. There are, you know, there's Algeria, there's Norway.

Matthew Dalton (8:48)

Norway is the European Union's biggest gas supplier now.

Matthew Dalton (8:51)

It's also a big supplier to the UK so it's not like in 2022, when Europe have the capacity to import a lot of lng. They built LNG import terminals all over

Matthew Dalton (9:01)

the continent in a relatively short amount of time.

Matthew Dalton (9:04)

Now the question is not so much availability, it's at what price and what

Matthew Dalton (9:08)

impact that will have on European consumers, on European companies that rely on gas.

Matthew Dalton (9:16)

It's another blow to a region that's

Matthew Dalton (9:20)

trying to remain competitive with the rest of the world and not doing a great job of it.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (9:24)

Right. So it sounds like the renewables push, if anything, is going to intensify as a result of all of this. Separately, I'm curious, is the continent going

Luke Vargas (9:31)

to go back to the Gulf when

Wall Street Journal Reporter (9:32)

the fighting is over?

Luke Vargas (9:33)

And what about the U.S. can it

Wall Street Journal Reporter (9:35)

be a reliable partner here?

Matthew Dalton (9:36)

During the Biden administration, when Europe was trying to figure out where to get its gas, if not from Russia, US LNG was seen as very reliable. Now, with the Trump administration and with all the problems that have appeared in the transatlantic alliance with Trump's threats of tariffs and threats to seize Greenland, Europe is having some doubts about whether the US Is, in fact, a reliable supplier. And last week, the US Ambassador to the EU said that Europe should quickly sign a trade deal that's under consideration with the US or risk losing favorable access to US lng. Now, it's a question whether actually Europe does have favorable access. In fact, they probably just pay for it and that they're willing to pay more than anybody else for US LNG under normal conditions. But it was a comment that some lawmakers in the European Parliament said it amounted to blackmail. So the US Reliability as an energy supplier is not viewed as it once was.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (10:34)

Just a few years ago, I've been speaking to Wall Street Journal energy security reporter Matthew Dalton. Matt, thanks so much.

Matthew Dalton (10:40)

Thank you, Luke.

Luke Vargas (10:41)

Meanwhile, concerns about a protracted disruption to

Wall Street Journal Reporter (10:44)

energy supplies are sending global equities lower and oil higher. Today. Japan's Nikkei and South Korea's Kospi index both fell more than 4% on fears that the war could slow global growth. Futures for international Benchma crude are up and trading around $108 a barrel. US gasoline prices are continuing their upward climb, sitting just shy of $4 a gallon. And Australia's government responded to higher prices today by cutting its fuel tax in half for three months. Here was Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announcing the move.

Tom Homan (11:17)

While Australia's fuel supply outlook remains secure in the near term, we need to be very clear as well with Australians that the longer this war goes on, the worse the impacts will be.

Luke Vargas (11:37)

In other market news, we are exclusively reporting that food distribution giant Cisco is nearing a deal to buy family owned Restaurant depot for roughly $29 billion.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (11:47)

Cisco is the biggest US food distributor to restaurants, hospitals and schools and the

Luke Vargas (11:53)

deal could help it to expand into the high mar and growing cash and

Wall Street Journal Reporter (11:56)

carry distribution model in which restaurant owners can pick up food supplies on the same day as they need them. Restaurant Depot operates more than 160 large format warehouse stores across 35 states and is expected to continue operating as a standalone business unit within Cisco after the deal closes.

Luke Vargas (12:16)

And Eli Lilly has signed a drug discovery deal with Hong Kong, listed in

Wall Street Journal Reporter (12:20)

silico worth as much as $2.75 billion

Luke Vargas (12:24)

as the drugmaker continues to tap China's

Wall Street Journal Reporter (12:26)

vast pharmac pharmaceutical research base. As part of the deal, Eli Lilly

Luke Vargas (12:30)

will obtain exclusive worldwide rights to manufacture and sell a number of drugs discovered

Wall Street Journal Reporter (12:35)

using Insilico's artificial intelligence model Pharma AI. The deal is part of Eli Lilly's plans to expand its supply chain capacity in the country and follow several high profile deals with Chinese drug makers.

Luke Vargas (12:49)

And that's it for what's news for this Monday morning.

Wall Street Journal Reporter (12:52)

Additional sound in this episode was from Reuters. Today's show was produced by Hattie Moyer. Our supervising producer was Daniel Boc and I'm Luke Vargas for the Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with a new show. Until then, thanks for listening.

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Law moves fast and legal work still needs to stay ahead. LexisNexis protege legal AI workflows bring trusted authority and verified citations into every draft. Private, secure, authoritative legal AI LexisNexis.