The Rest of the World Report | May 7, 2026 — Morning Edition
The View From Everywhere Else
Weekday morning and evening editions. Saturdays once. Good news on Sundays. All sources labeled.
1. NEARLY $3.7 BILLION PLACED AHEAD OF FIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS — AND A FEDERAL INVESTIGATION IS OPEN
This is not one suspicious trade. It is a pattern.
Five times since February 28, large crude oil short positions have been placed in the hours before a Trump administration announcement moved energy markets by double digits. Five times, whoever held those positions made substantial profits before the news was public. The combined notional value of the five trades is approximately $3.7 billion. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has been formally investigating since April 15.
The five episodes, in chronological order. First: more than $580 million in oil futures surged before Trump announced a pause in strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure on March 23 — confirmed by the Financial Times, which documented the surge 15 minutes before Trump’s Truth Social post. Oil fell more than 10 percent following the announcement. Second: approximately $950 million was bet on declining oil prices shortly before the US-Iran ceasefire was made public on April 7 — confirmed by Reuters. Third: approximately $760 million was placed on falling oil prices on April 17, just 20 minutes before Iran’s Foreign Minister announced the Strait of Hormuz was open for the ceasefire period — confirmed by OilPrice.com and Wikipedia’s economic impact tracking. Fourth: approximately $430 million in bets were placed minutes before Trump extended the Iran ceasefire — confirmed by OilPrice.com; exact date not confirmed this session. Fifth: at 3:40 a.m. ET on Wednesday, nearly 10,000 crude oil short contracts worth approximately $920 million in notional value were placed with no news catalyst. Seventy minutes later, Axios published its exclusive report on the MOU. By 7:00 a.m., oil had fallen more than 12 percent. Wednesday’s trade alone generated approximately $125 million in confirmed gains, according to the Kobeissi Letter.
The CFTC opened a formal investigation on April 15, covering at least $1.45 billion in combined positions from the first two episodes. The agency has requested trader identification data from CME Group and the Intercontinental Exchange. CFTC Director of Enforcement David Miller has publicly identified energy market manipulation as a stated enforcement priority, saying manipulation in these markets “directly impacts consumers and can have broad inflationary effects.” The agency has authority to subpoena phone records, emails, and text messages, and can coordinate with the Department of Justice, which has grand jury subpoena authority. No charges have been filed. No trader has been publicly named.
Congressional Democrats have demanded action. Representative Ritchie Torres sent two separate letters to the SEC and CFTC. Representative Sam Liccardo sent a third. Senator Chris Murphy described the pattern as potentially “mind-blowing corruption.” Torres told CNBC: “The only plausible answer to that question is an insider trader. Any other alternative is a statistical impossibility.” The SEC has not publicly confirmed opening an investigation. The CFTC has.
The context around the pattern is significant. Jared Kushner, one of Trump’s two Iran envoys currently negotiating the MOU, is simultaneously seeking to raise billions of dollars for his private equity fund from Persian Gulf governments that are directly entangled in the war, according to Axios reporting confirmed this session. The Trump administration has also systematically weakened the enforcement infrastructure that would normally pursue cases like this: the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, created after Watergate to prosecute corrupt officials, was reduced from 36 lawyers to two last year. Reuters, citing three anonymous officials, reported that the SEC’s top enforcement official resigned after agency leaders blocked her from aggressively pursuing cases touching Trump’s circle.
The pattern extends beyond futures markets. More than $1 million in profits was collected on prediction market bets on the specific timing of Trump’s war with Iran in late February. Last month, a special forces soldier was indicted by the Department of Justice after making $400,000 on Polymarket by betting on the removal of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, allegedly using classified information about an operation he was personally involved in. A White House memo instructed officials not to partake in insider trading on prediction markets. Representative Liccardo told CNBC: “No one in federal service needs to be ‘reminded’ of the blatant illegality of personal financial enrichment from their exploitation of confidential information garnered through public service.”
To be precise about what is confirmed and what is not: the trades are confirmed market records. The timing relative to announcements is confirmed. The CFTC investigation is confirmed. Wednesday’s $125 million gain is confirmed. Profit figures for the other four episodes are not publicly verified — the notional position sizes and subsequent price moves are documented, but exact entry and exit points are not. The insider trading allegation is what the pattern raises — the CFTC must establish that traders had access to material nonpublic information, which requires tracing communications and government access logs. That work is ongoing. What can be said without qualification is this: on five separate occasions, approximately $3.7 billion in trades were placed that paid off within hours of market-moving government announcements. The federal government considers it serious enough to investigate formally.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: Gas is $4.54 a gallon. The war that produced that price has also produced, on at least five occasions, trades that paid off enormously within hours of market-moving government announcements — trades that a federal regulator has formally flagged as potentially unlawful. Someone is profiting from this war in ways the CFTC considers serious enough to investigate formally. The people paying at the pump are not those people.
Sources: The Kobeissi Letter via Benzinga (financial intelligence — Wednesday’s $920M trade, $125M confirmed gain, confirmed this session); OilPrice.com (industry — April 17 $760M trade, April ceasefire extension trade, full chronology, confirmed this session); Wikipedia / Economic impact of the 2026 Iran war (secondary — five-episode chronology confirmed against primary sources this session); Common Dreams / Real News Network (US, progressive — Tier 2 label; FT $580M figure, Polymarket context, confirmed this session); Rep. Ritchie Torres congressional website (primary source — Torres letter text, $950M Reuters figure, confirmed this session); CNBC (US — Liccardo letter, Torres quote, Murphy quote, confirmed this session); Armstrong & Bradylyons PLLC (US legal — CFTC formal investigation April 15, Miller statement, subpoena authority, confirmed this session); Axios (US — Kushner private equity fundraising from Gulf governments, DOJ Public Integrity Section reduction, SEC enforcement official resignation, White House denial, confirmed this session)
2. THE IRAN MOU — WHAT IS ACTUALLY ON THE TABLE
The one-page memorandum of understanding now has confirmed details that go beyond what was publicly known yesterday. Axios, sourcing two US officials and two additional sources, reports that the document being negotiated would commit Iran to a moratorium on uranium enrichment of at least 12 years — with one source putting 15 years as the likely landing spot. Iran would commit never to seek a nuclear weapon or conduct weaponization-related activities. It would agree to an enhanced inspections regime including snap inspections by UN inspectors and commit not to operate underground nuclear facilities. Two sources with knowledge said Iran would agree to remove its highly enriched uranium from the country — a key US priority Tehran had previously rejected — with one option being transfer of the material to the United States.
In exchange, the US would commit to a gradual lifting of sanctions on Iran and the gradual release of billions of dollars in Iranian funds frozen around the world. Iran’s restrictions on shipping through the strait and the US naval blockade would both be gradually lifted during the 30-day negotiating window that follows the MOU’s signing. If those negotiations collapse, US forces would be able to restore the blockade or resume military action. Talks would happen in Islamabad or Geneva.
Iran has not yet formally responded. Its Foreign Ministry confirmed it is reviewing the proposal and will convey its assessment to Pakistan, which is mediating. Iranian President Pezeshkian said Wednesday the US is pursuing maximum pressure and that submission to unilateral American demands is “impossible.” Those two positions — reviewing the proposal and calling it impossible — are not necessarily contradictory; Iran is signaling to its domestic audience while keeping the diplomatic channel open.
Trump’s public statements on Wednesday moved in both directions. In the morning he expressed confidence, saying Iran “wants to make a deal badly.” By afternoon he told the New York Post it was “too soon” to prepare to sign, and called it “perhaps, a big assumption” that Iran would accept the proposal. He set no deadline, telling reporters: “Never a deadline. It’ll happen, it’ll happen, but never a deadline.”
Iran moved in its own direction simultaneously. Tehran announced the creation of a new “Persian Gulf Strait Authority” — a body to permanently regulate vessel transit through the Strait of Hormuz on Iran’s terms. The IRGC navy said safe passage would be “ensured” under new procedures, without specifying what those procedures entail. The announcement positions Iran as the sovereign authority over the strait regardless of what any MOU says — a negotiating posture that tells Washington what Tehran expects any final deal to look like.
A note for readers on why this matters legally: the Strait of Hormuz is not open international water in the way the mid-Atlantic is. Its navigable channels pass entirely through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman. What makes it an international strait — legally distinct from a private national waterway — is that it qualifies under the law of the sea as a passage used for global navigation, giving ships a non-suspendable right of transit regardless of whose territorial waters they cross. Iran signed but never ratified the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which codifies that right. Iran’s position is that non-signatories cannot claim UNCLOS rights. The United States — which has also not ratified UNCLOS — disputes that interpretation and treats transit passage as customary international law binding on all states. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority is Iran’s institutional assertion of the coastal sovereignty argument: that the strait passes through Iranian territory, and Iran sets the terms. Washington’s position is that no single country can set those terms unilaterally. That dispute is not new. It is the legal foundation of the entire conflict.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The MOU, if signed, does not open the strait immediately. It opens a 30-day negotiating window. The 23,000 civilian sailors stranded in the Gulf, including at least 10 who have died, remain stranded during that window. Brent fell to $98.42 this morning on deal optimism — down nearly 15 percent from Monday’s high. If the deal holds, gas should follow within days. But Iran has not said yes. Iran has announced its own authority to regulate the strait. And the man negotiating for the US told a reporter yesterday it was “too soon” to prepare a signing ceremony. The deal is close. It is not done.
Sources: Axios (US — access journalism model; MOU details including enrichment moratorium, HEU removal, inspections regime, sanctions lifting, Geneva/Islamabad venues, corroborated by Reuters, CNN, ABC, NPR this session); ABC News (US — Trump “never a deadline” quote, “too soon” New York Post reference, Oval Office remarks, confirmed this session); NPR (US confirmation — Pezeshkian “impossible” quote, blockade turned around 52 vessels, confirmed this session); Benzinga (US — Persian Gulf Strait Authority announcement, IRGC safe passage statement, confirmed this session); The Conversation (academic — Strait legal status, UNCLOS non-ratification by US and Iran, competing legal frameworks, confirmed this session); Lawfare (US legal — transit passage rights, territorial waters architecture, confirmed this session); Trading Economics (markets — Brent Thursday stabilization above $101, Wednesday close $101.27, intraday low $96.73, confirmed this session)
3. EUROPE IS PUSHING BACK AGAINST ISRAEL — AND MOST AMERICAN READERS DON’T KNOW IT
Something has been building in Europe for two years that American media has largely not explained to American readers. It is now at a genuinely consequential phase, and Wednesday’s news brought it to a new threshold.
Start with Spain. In September 2025, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a total arms embargo on Israel and banned imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. The legal instrument was Royal Decree-Law 10/2025, passed by the Spanish cabinet, providing for what it explicitly called “urgent measures against the genocide in Gaza.” Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called the measures “anti-Semitic.” Madrid summoned its ambassador in Israel back for consultations and rejected the allegation directly: Spain “will not be intimidated in its defence of peace, international law and human rights.” In December 2025, Spain began formally enforcing the settlement product ban — the largest state-level embargo of Israeli goods since the Arab League boycott. Slovenia had preceded it in August 2025. Neither country’s trade with Israel is large enough to cause economic damage. That is not the point.
The point, as Maya Sion-Tzidkiyahu of the Mitvim Institute told the Times of Israel, is that “when a country of considerable size like Spain advances a move like this, it gives backing to smaller states to follow.” Spain is not a small state. It is the fourth-largest economy in the eurozone, a NATO member, a permanent presence on the UN Security Council, and a country with a population of 47 million and a long-standing political tradition of solidarity with the Palestinian cause. When Spain acts, it sets the floor for what other European governments can do without being isolated.
The floor has been rising. Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia have formally called for suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — the trade and cooperation framework that gives Israel preferential access to European markets. The agreement contains a human rights clause. The International Court of Justice’s 2024 advisory opinion found Israel in breach of its obligations under international law. Spain, Ireland, and Slovenia argue the clause requires suspension. The European Commission has acknowledged the argument has legal merit. The proposal has stalled: Germany, Hungary, and the Czech Republic have blocked it, and the qualified majority required — at least 55 percent of member states representing 65 percent of the EU population — has not been reached. But Belgium and the Netherlands have moved toward support. France and Italy are watching.
On Wednesday, Sánchez moved to a new front. He wrote to European Commission President von der Leyen calling for immediate activation of the EU’s Blocking Statute — a legal instrument designed to protect European citizens from the effects of foreign sanctions. The specific target: US sanctions against the International Criminal Court. In February, Trump signed an executive order sanctioning the ICC after it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Gallant for war crimes. Trump also sanctioned Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur for Palestinian Territories, for her criticisms of Israel. Sánchez’s letter asked the Commission to use the Blocking Statute to shield both the ICC and Albanese from US sanctions. “The EU cannot remain idle in the face of this persecution,” he wrote. “Sanctioning those who defend international justice puts the entire human rights system at risk.”
This is the architecture of what is happening, stated plainly: the United States has sanctioned the international court that issued arrest warrants for an ally’s leaders. A major European democracy is asking the European Union to use a legal mechanism designed to resist US pressure in order to protect that court. The same European democracy has imposed an arms embargo on that ally. The ally’s foreign minister has called the European democracy’s actions antisemitic. And the United States is simultaneously negotiating an end to a war while its European partners move, concretely and legally, in the opposite direction on the conflict that produced the war.
🌍 TRANSLATOR’S NOTE: European press has been covering this story continuously for two years in a way that American media has not. Euronews has tracked Spain’s legal measures, the EU association agreement fight, and the ICC warrant standoff as interconnected threads in a single story about whether Europe will use its economic leverage to enforce international law. The IFRI analysis, published this week by the French Institute of International Relations, frames the story as one of escalation within continuity — Spain’s position has been building since October 7, 2023, and each escalation has made the next one easier for other European states to follow. The framing in European coverage is not primarily about Israel or Palestine — it is about what kind of actor the European Union intends to be in international law. Spain is making the argument that the EU’s credibility as a rules-based institution depends on applying its own rules consistently. Germany and others are making the counter-argument that geopolitical stability requires pragmatic restraint. That debate is unresolved. But the direction of travel is notable: two years ago, suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement was a fringe position. Today it has the formal support of three member states, the conditional support of several more, and the European Commission has acknowledged it has legal merit.
🇺🇸 What American readers need to know: The United States has sanctioned the international court that issued arrest warrants for Israel’s prime minister. America’s closest European partners are formally asking the EU to use legal mechanisms to resist those sanctions. Spain has imposed a total arms embargo on Israel. The ICC arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant remain outstanding — meaning that if either man travels to a country that recognizes ICC jurisdiction and chooses to enforce the warrants, they could be arrested. Several European countries would be legally obligated to execute the warrants under international law if either man traveled to their territory. The Iran war has consumed American diplomatic attention for 68 days. The conflict that the war grew out of — and the legal and diplomatic framework around it — has not paused while Washington looked at the strait.
Sources: Times of Israel (Israel, centrist — Spain’s Royal Decree-Law 10/2025, settlement product ban, Sion-Tzidkiyahu quote, EU cascade analysis, confirmed this session); Al Jazeera (Qatar, state-funded/editorially independent — September 2025 arms embargo, Sánchez speech, Saar “anti-Semitic” response, confirmed this session); Euronews (European, broadly centrist — EU association agreement fight, member state positions, Kallas statement, settler sanctions, confirmed this session); Common Dreams (US, progressive — Tier 2 label; Sánchez Blocking Statute letter to von der Leyen, Wednesday May 6 dateline, Trump ICC sanctions, Albanese sanctions, confirmed this session); IFRI (French Institute of International Relations, non-partisan — Spain foreign policy architecture, Royal Decree-Law history, confirmed this session)
WAR DAY 68 | NUMBERS AT PUBLICATION
🇮🇷 Iran: 3,636+ killed (HRANA floor estimate — 1,701 civilians including 254+ children, 1,221 military, 714 unclassified; FROZEN since Day 38/April 7; no updated HRANA report confirmed this session)
🇱🇧 Lebanon: At least 2,702 killed (Al Jazeera tracker, May 5 — not yet updated for Wednesday’s strikes)
🇮🇱 Israel: At least 26 killed (Al Jazeera tracker — potentially stale; carried with attribution)
🌍 Gulf states: At least 28 killed (Al Jazeera tracker — potentially stale; carried with attribution)
🇺🇸 US military: 13 combat deaths confirmed (CENTCOM); at least 10 civilian sailors confirmed dead from Iran’s blockade while stranded (Rubio, May 5 — not included in official tallies)
🛢️ Brent crude: ~$98.42/barrel (OilPrice.com, confirmed by editor this session — stabilizing after Wednesday’s intraday low of $96.73; down from Monday’s $115.24 high; deal optimism driving sustained retreat)
⛽ US gas: $4.54/gallon (Forbes, last confirmed yesterday — wholesale gas fell 5% Wednesday; pump prices expected to follow within days if deal optimism holds)
Sourcing note: Iran civilian casualties sourced to HRANA (US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency), a floor estimate based on activist networks inside Iran. Figure frozen since ceasefire. Lebanon figure not yet updated for Wednesday’s strikes including the Beirut attack; Wednesday’s confirmed toll of at least 13 killed will be reflected in the next tracker update. The 10 civilian sailor deaths are a separate category confirmed by Rubio on May 5. Gas price note: wholesale prices fell sharply Wednesday on deal optimism; retail pump prices lag the wholesale market and are expected to follow within days if current trajectory holds.
ALSO DEVELOPING — for the curious:
Ukraine — Russia’s ceasefire starts tomorrow. Russia’s Victory Day ceasefire begins Friday May 8 for May 8-9. Ukraine’s has been in effect since Monday midnight. Russia violated it 1,820 times in the first day. The Victory Day parade is Saturday without military hardware. Putin is reported by the Irish Times, citing European intelligence sources, to be conducting the war from underground bunkers in Krasnodar while state media broadcasts recorded footage to project normality. Watch for whether Russia observes its own ceasefire more carefully than it observed Ukraine’s.
Flotilla — Sunday hearing, eighth day in custody. Abukeshek and Ávila remain in Shikma Prison without charges, on secret evidence, on their eighth day in custody and entering their seventh day of hunger strike. The court ordered medical monitoring. Lula and Sánchez have personally demanded their release. Italy’s prosecutorial investigation continues. Next hearing Sunday May 10.
Lebanon — death toll update pending. Wednesday’s Beirut strike and attacks across southern Lebanon killed at least 13 people and injured dozens. The Al Jazeera tracker has not yet updated to reflect Wednesday’s toll. Lebanon’s death toll in this edition reflects the pre-Wednesday figure and will be updated in tonight’s Evening Edition.
“Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” — Thomas Jefferson, 1789