Category: News

For the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the price of oil skyrocketed past $100 per barrel this week, driven by ongoing energy uncertainty after the United States and Israel’s war on Iran began on February 28.

About 20 percent of the world’s oil comes from the Gulf region, and most of it is shipped on massive tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. This narrow waterway, located between Iran and Oman, is only 21 nautical miles (39km) wide at its narrowest point.

More than 20 million barrels transit through the strait per day, which is one-fifth of global petroleum consumption and accounts for one-quarter of all oil traded by sea.

According to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), more than three-quarters of the world’s oil supply (79.8 million barrels per day) travels by sea, funnelled through a handful of critical chokepoints with no easy transit alternatives.

Why are oil prices surging?

Since the Iran war began, marine traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has nearly ground to a halt. Attacks on vessels and interference with navigation equipment have pushed most operators to anchor their ships at the waterway’s edge rather than risk the crossing.

Without the flow of this oil, global supply chains are severely disrupted. With a limited supply and rising demand, prices are likely to increase, putting pressure on consumers and businesses.

While prices briefly dipped on Monday after US President Donald Trump said, “The war is very complete, pretty much,” analysts warned that high prices could persist if no agreement is reached between Washington, Tel Aviv and Tehran to stop the war.

“It’s all about risk,” Ismayil Jabiyev, supply chain analyst at CarbonChain, told Al Jazeera.

“Think about the Strait of Hormuz and cheap drones. It’s not a physical blockage – Iran hasn’t built a wall across the sea. Cheap drones will always pose a risk, even if all the launch sites are destroyed because hidden drone launches could continue for months. As long as hostilities continue, the disruption is likely to persist. I don’t see any real progress or resolution on the horizon,” Jabiyev added.

Which countries rely most on Middle Eastern oil?

About 89 percent of the oil that flows through the Strait of Hormuz is bound for Asian markets with China, India, Japan and South Korea the top buyers.

If traffic remains restricted, Gulf exporters will be forced to seek alternative routes, but options are limited with Saudi Aramco’s East-West Crude Oil Pipeline and the United Arab Emirates’s Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Habshan-Fujairah pipeline) offering a capacity of about 4.7 million barrels per day (bpd).

The Saudi pipeline runs from eastern oilfields to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, one of the few arteries that bypasses the strait entirely. However, of the 7.2 million bpd that Saudi Arabia exported in February, 6.38 million bpd relied on passage through the strait, according to Kpler, a global trade data and analytics firm.

Gavekal Research, an independent macroeconomic research firm, estimated that Gulf exporters, including Iran, could reroute at most an additional 3.5 million bpd to terminals outside the strait. But as long as the bulk of tanker traffic remains suspended, the world would still be facing a sudden supply shortfall of about 15 million bpd.

“I’m somewhat sceptical about those alternatives. Yes, the East-West pipeline and the Fujairah pipeline exist, but capacity-wise, they don’t come close to the main route.” Jabiyev told Al Jazeera.

“There’s also the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline from Iraq’s northern provinces to Turkiye, but that’s limited to northern field production. The major Iraqi output comes from the southern fields, so again, it’s a partial replacement, not a full one.”

What is the highest oil price ever recorded?

Oil prices rose to their highest levels during the global financial crisis. On July 11, 2008, Brent crude, the European benchmark, hit $147.50 per barrel while West Texas intermediate crude, the US benchmark, hit a peak of $147.27. That spike was driven by a mix of a weakening US dollar and a massive influx of speculative money rather than a physical disruption to supply.

Throughout history, there have been a handful of energy market shocks when oil supplies were actually threatened, most notably the 1973 oil embargo, the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, the 1990-1991 Gulf War, the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

“I think the Gulf War of 1990-91 is the most instructive comparison. Iraq and Kuwait together represented two major producers, and the disruption was serious and prolonged – lasting roughly half a year or more, even though the military phase was fairly brief,” Jabiyev told Al Jazeera.

“The world experienced high crude oil prices for an extended period and eventually faced some economic slowdown as a result. That makes it most analogous to our current situation: a likely long-term disruption, sustained high prices and a meaningful risk of economic slowdown. The key variable, as in 1990, was how quickly the affected countries could restore their production infrastructure and bring supply back online.”

How does crude oil become petrol?

Crude oil is a yellowish-black fossil fuel pumped from the ground and refined into fuels like petrol, diesel and jet fuel. The refining process also produces numerous household items.

Oil is graded by thickness and sulphur content. Light, sweet crude is low in sulphur and easy to refine and thus more valuable. After extraction, crude oil is sent to refineries where heat separates it into products. Lighter fuels form at lower temperatures while heavier products, such as asphalt, require much higher heat.

A barrel contains 159 litres, or 42 gallons, of crude oil. Once refined, a barrel typically produces about 73 litres, or 19.35 gallons, of petrol to power cars and trucks.

What products are made from oil and gas?

Oil and gas are used for far more than just fuel. They are raw materials for thousands of everyday products.

Plastics, including water bottles, food packaging, phone casings and medical syringes, are all derived from crude oil.

Crude oil is also the hidden ingredient in synthetic fabrics, such as polyester, nylon and acrylic, which is in everything from sportswear to carpets. It also underpins the cosmetics industry in products that include petroleum jelly, lipsticks and concealers.

Household items also rely on oil-based ingredients with laundry detergents, dishwashing liquids and paints all derived from petroleum products.

The global food supply is essentially built on natural gas in the form of fertilisers, used to enhance crop yields and ensure that food production can meet demand.

How high oil costs drive up the price of food

Oil prices and food prices move in lockstep with energy prices affecting every stage of the food supply chain from the fertilisers used in the fields to the trucks that carry food from the fields to supermarket shelves.

Rising oil prices directly affect shipping and the cost of transportation.

“The lifeblood of the global economy is transport,” economist David McWilliams told Al Jazeera. “It’s getting stuff from A to B. It’s a logistics problem, a supply chain problem, and ultimately, transportation is the energy of the global economy.”

Fears of stagflation – rising inflation and rising unemployment, which major oil shocks have historically summoned – are rising. Economists pointed to the crises of 1973, 1978 and 2008 as evidence that every significant spike in oil prices has been followed, in some form, by a global recession.

In lower-income countries, where populations spend a far greater share of their income on food and import large quantities of grain and fertiliser, rising oil prices could rapidly translate into food shortages.

US prosecutors say Turkish assistance in negotiating ceasefire and release of captives in Gaza contributed to settlement.

The United States has tentatively agreed to drop a criminal case accusing Turkiye’s state-run Halkbank of participating in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade sanctions against Iran.

In a document filed with the US District Court for the Southern District of New York on Monday, prosecutors said resolving the case would be in the “best interests” of the US government, a move that would end a years-long prosecution that has strained relations between Washington and Ankara.

Prosecutors said “unique and extraordinary national security and foreign policy considerations” contributed to the settlement, including Turkiye’s assistance in securing October’s ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas and the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza.

“This unique and substantial public interest in supporting the release of the hostages weighed heavily in the government’s assessment of the appropriate resolution of this case,” the US Department of Justice said in the filing.

Halkbank will engage a mutually agreed-upon third party to review the lender’s sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance as part of the deal, the Justice Department said.

The bank will also refrain from “conducting or facilitating” any transactions with the Iranian government, Iranian people or Iranian entities that involve US people or financial institutions during the period of the agreement, according to prosecutors.

“This agreement by Halkbank furthers the United States’ compelling interests in combating terrorist financing and financial support for the Government of Iran,” prosecutors said.

Halkbank, which has its headquarters in Istanbul, said it had not admitted to criminal wrongdoing and would not pay any penalties under the settlement, which requires the sign-off of a judge.

“This development is expected to positively impact our bank’s financial structure by expanding its foreign funding opportunities, correspondent network, and access to international markets,” the bank said in a statement posted on its website.

Halkbank’s Istanbul-listed shares on Monday rose 10 percent.

Turkiye had vigorously protested against the US case, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the original 2019 indictment “ugly” and “unlawful”.

US prosecutors had accused Halkbank of secretly transferring $20bn in Iranian funds in violation of Washington’s sanctions on Tehran.

Halkbank, which denied wrongdoing, had argued that it was protected from prosecution by sovereign immunity, taking its case all the way to the US Supreme Court, which rejected the lender’s appeal in October.

The US president repeats claims that Cuba is ready to negotiate as it faces a spiralling energy and economic crisis.

United States President Donald Trump has signalled that his administration is still pursuing a government overthrow in Cuba even as the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its second week.

Trump said on Monday that the US Department of State is still focused on Cuba, where plans by the White House may or may not include “a friendly takeover” of the island, according to the Reuters news agency.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is “dealing” with Cuba, the president told reporters in Florida.

“He’s dealing [with it], and it may be a friendly takeover, it may not be a friendly takeover. Wouldn’t really matter because they’re really down to … as they say, fumes. They have no energy, they have no money,” Trump said.

“They are going to make either a deal or we’ll do it just as easy, anyway,” he said.

Cuba has been grappling with an energy crisis since January, when US forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and halted fuel exports from Caracas to Havana, cutting the country off from one of its few allies and a key source of oil for the Cuban economy.

White House officials have suggested that Cuba is facing an economic collapse and that its government is ready to negotiate with Washington.

Trump has said on multiple occasions that Cuba’s government is ready to “fall” and that its leaders want to “make a deal” with Washington, according to NBC News.

Cuba has denied reports of high-level talks, according to Reuters, but it has not “outright” denied US media reports of “informal talks” between Raul Guillermo Rodriguez Castro, the grandson of former Cuban President Raul Castro, and US officials.

Cuba has been in the crosshairs of the US for decades, but Trump is the first US president since the Cold War to openly discuss and pursue a government change in Havana.

Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and Cuba are in line with his revival of the “Monroe Doctrine”, a 19th-century policy that states the Western Hemisphere should be solely under the sway of the US and no other foreign power.

Trump first raised the notion of a “friendly takeover” of Cuba in February.

North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong said the annual ‘Freedom Shield’ exercises could lead to ‘unimaginably terrible consequences’.

Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, has accused the United States and South Korea of “destroying the stability” of East Asia, as the two countries start their annual 10-day joint military exercises on the Korean Peninsula.

“The muscle-flexing of the hostile forces near the areas of our state’s sovereignty and security may cause unimaginably terrible consequences,” Kim Yo Yong said on Tuesday, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

“The enemies should never try to test our patience, will and capability,” Kim said.

“We will watch to what extent the enemy violates the security of our state and what it is playing at,” she continued.

Kim’s remarks follow the start of the joint Freedom Shield exercises on Monday, which will run for 10 days and involve 18,000 South Korean and US military personnel.

The military manoeuvres are designed to “enhance the combined, joint, all-domain, and interagency operational environment, thereby strengthening the Alliance’s response capabilities,” United States Forces Korea said.

This year’s Freedom Shield will involve 22 field training drills, according to South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, which is fewer than half the number carried out last year.

Kim added on Tuesday that there was no justification to hold the exercises, which have been called a “defensive” action by Washington and Seoul in the past.

“No matter what justification they may establish and how the elements of the drill may be coordinated, the clear confrontational nature of the high-intensity large-scale war drill staged by the most hostile entities in collusion at the doorstep of [North Korea] never changes,” she said.

“The recent global geopolitical crisis and complicated international events prove that all military manoeuvres of the field warfare troops, to be conducted by the enemy states, assume no distinction between defence and attack, training and actual warfare,” she continued, in an apparent reference to the US-Israel war on Iran.

South Korea and North Korea have technically been at war since 1953, when an armistice agreement paused fighting but did not formally end the armed confrontation.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said in 2024 that he would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea, although it remains Seoul’s long-term goal.

An official at South Korea’s Ministry of Unification told Yonhap that Kim’s remarks on Tuesday were relatively muted by North Korean standards.

The statement did not refer directly to the US or threaten to use nuclear weapons, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

“Kim appears to have limited her response to merely pinpointing the South Korea-US exercise, taking the current security situation into account,” the official told Yonhap.

Surging energy prices caused by the US-Israel war on Iran could ripple across the United States economy, heaping further strain on consumers at a time when cost-of-living issues are already a primary concern.

The price of crude oil increased from about $67 per barrel before the war began on February 28 to nearly $97 on Monday, as the conflict snarls production and transport in one of the most energy-rich regions on earth. Oil temporarily passed $100 per barrel on Sunday before slightly easing back.

The price tracker GasBuddy reported on Monday that the average price of gas in the US has risen by 51 cents per gallon over the last week.

“Yes, yes, definitely,” said 52-year-old Alma Newell when asked if she was worried about price increases at a gas station in the coastal city of Goleta, California.

Newell said she is out of work with a shoulder injury and worried that rising costs could stretch her already limited budget.

“The prices have a big impact because I’m not working right now,” she said. “Food and rent are already very expensive.”

“It’s crazy,” she added. “Because the war is so unnecessary.”

Cost of living issues

Rising prices could deepen frustration with the administration of US President Donald Trump and put greater political pressure on the White House, already struggling to address cost-of-living issues with the crucial midterm elections set to take place later this year.

“I think the current price increase in oil suggests the US will see $3.50 to $4 gasoline by next week, and $5 diesel this week,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst on Iran and oil at the Eurasia Group.

The highest recorded average for gas prices at the pump was in June 2022, when prices soared to $5.034, months after the Russian war on Ukraine started, according to Gas Buddy, which tracks fuel prices going back to 2008.

“The impact [now] is more political than economic, as high gasoline prices generate negative press and can add to the perception that the government is not properly handling the economy. That means Trump will feel more political pressure to end this war quickly.”

A Pew Research Center poll in early February suggested widespread anxiety about the rising cost-of-living before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, with 68 percent of respondents saying they were very or somewhat concerned about gas prices.

“I’m not too worried myself because I have a hybrid car and ride my bike,” said 72-year-old Bjorn Birmir at the gas station in Goleta, California. “But for people in general, it will make life more expensive. Prices are already high, and it will make them even higher.”

Ongoing disruptions

The disruptions caused by the war include the shuttering of the Strait of Hormuz, a key node in global transit and shipping. Iran has long said that it could close down the strait in the event of a showdown with the US and Israel.

About 20 percent of global oil and a significant portion of natural gas pass through the strait, predominantly to Asia, supplies that are now stranded as traffic through the narrow waterway has ground to a halt. Iranian attacks on energy infrastructure in countries across the region have also led some countries to scale back production.

Other economic sectors are also feeling the squeeze.

Goods such as fertiliser, vital for agricultural production, are seeing price increases just ahead of the spring planting season in the Northern Hemisphere. About one-third of the global fertiliser trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

Effects of the war could ripple throughout the global economy, with poor countries especially hard-hit. Pakistan announced a series of austerity measures and cuts to fuel subsidies on Monday, while Bangladesh shuttered universities and announced restrictions on fuel use as a result of the war.

US officials and countries around the world have already discussed measures to help ease the shock of rising energy prices, including the potential release of strategic oil reserves in a bid to temporarily boost global supply.

The G7 said on Monday that it would take “necessary measures” to support energy supplies, but held off on announcing the release of strategic reserves, with energy ministers set to meet on Tuesday to discuss the matter further.

The US has a strategic oil reserve of more than 415 million barrels, one of the largest in the world, that it could release in coordination with allied countries.

But it is unclear when these measures would kick in and how long such steps could help fill the gaps created by the war.

Rachel Ziemba, adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, says that much depends on whether the war is brought to a speedy conclusion or continues on for weeks or even months, with the possibility of further escalation.

Thus far, neither the US and Israel nor Iran has suggested it are willing to stop the war anytime soon, although Trump told CBS News on Monday that “the war is very complete, pretty much”, comments that helped ease some of the price swings in oil and stocks.

“If the war continues, we would see oil prices not only remain elevated, but perhaps rally further as markets price in a more protracted outage,” said Ziemba. “There’s also the question of, when it does end, how much damage will be done to infrastructure and just how quickly supplies could come back online.”

Initial polling has suggested that the war is unpopular in the US, with a Quinnipiac University poll released on Monday finding that 53 percent of voters who responded oppose Trump’s military action in Iran, including 60 percent of political independents.

That lack of popular support could present a political headache for Trump and his Republican Party if voters connect the war to increasing prices. Thus far, Trump has largely dismissed concerns about the war’s possible impact on the rising cost of living.

“Short term oil prices, which will drop rapidly when the destruction of the Iran nuclear threat is over, is a very small price to pay for USA, and World, Safety and Peace,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Sunday. “ONLY FOOLS WOULD THINK DIFFERENTLY!”

Trump administration accuses the group of receiving support from the Iran and carrying out violence against civilians.

The United States has designated the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood as a “terrorist” group, as the administration of President Donald Trump widens its crackdown on the organisation.

The State Department accused the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood on Monday of receiving support from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Washington labelled the group as a “specially designated global terrorist” (SDGT) and said that it will designate it as a “foreign terrorist organisation” (FTO) starting next week.

“The Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood uses unrestrained violence against civilians to undermine efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan and advance its violent Islamist ideology,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.

The SDGT designation enables economic sanctions against the group, while the FTO label makes it illegal to provide material support to it.

The State Department accused Muslim Brotherhood fighters in Sudan – where the Sudanese military is fighting against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group – of conducting “mass executions of civilians”.

The RSF, which has been accused of major human rights violations, and its supporters often argue that they are fighting Muslim Brotherhood forces.

On Monday, the United Arab Emirates welcomed Washington’s move to blacklist the group in Sudan.

The UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the “US measure reflects the sustained and systematic efforts undertaken by the administration of President Trump to halt excessive violence against civilians and the destabilizing activities carried out by the Muslim Brotherhood in Sudan”.

In January, the Trump administration blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in Lebanon, Jordan and Sudan, a move the groups rejected.

Established in 1928 by Egyptian Muslim scholar Hassan al-Banna, the Muslim Brotherhood has offshoots and branches across the Middle East, including political parties and social organisations.

The group and its affiliates say they are committed to peaceful political participation.

In the US and other countries in the West, right-wing activists have for years tried to demonise Muslim immigrant communities and Israel’s critics with accusations of links to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some of Trump’s hawkish allies in Congress have also for years been calling for the group to be blacklisted.

The US military claims six men killed in a strike on a suspected drug-smuggling boat in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The United States military says it has killed six men in a strike on an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific Ocean as part of a campaign against traffickers.

The attack on Sunday brought the death toll to at least 157 people since early September when President Donald Trump’s administration began targeting those it calls “narcoterrorists” in small vessels.

“Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations,” General Francis Donovan, commander of US Southern Command, posted on X with a video showing a small boat being blown up as it floated on the water.

As with most of the military’s statements on the more than 40 known strikes in the Eastern Pacific and Caribbean Sea, US Southern Command said it targeted alleged drug traffickers along known smuggling routes. The military did not provide evidence that the vessel was ferrying drugs.

Trump has said the US is in “armed conflict” with cartels in Latin America and has justified the attacks as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs into the US. But his administration has offered little evidence to support its claims of killing “narcoterrorists”.

In a meeting with Latin American leaders on Saturday, Trump encouraged them to join the US in taking military action against drug-trafficking cartels and transnational gangs, which he said pose an “unacceptable threat” to the region’s security.

To that end, Ecuador and the US conducted military operations this past week against organised crime groups in the South American country.

With Saturday’s gathering, Trump aimed to demonstrate that he remains committed to focusing US foreign policy on the Western Hemisphere, even while waging a war on Iran that has had repercussions across the Middle East.

Critics have questioned the overall legality of the boat strikes as well as their effectiveness, in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses is typically trafficked to the US over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.

The boat strikes also drew intense criticism after the revelation that the military killed survivors of the very first boat attack with a follow-up strike. The Trump administration and many Republican lawmakers said it was legal and necessary while Democratic lawmakers and legal experts said the killings were murder, if not a war crime.

On Thursday, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the campaign to hunt down boats allegedly bringing drugs from South America had been so successful that it was now hard to find targets.

Top Democratic senators in the United States have called for an investigation into the strike against a girls’ school in southern Iran, saying that the Pentagon must “provide clear answers” about the incident that killed at least 170 people.

Six lawmakers said in a joint statement late on Sunday that they are “horrified” by the bombing of the elementary school in Minab during the opening US-Israeli strikes against Iran on February 28.

“The killing of school children is appalling and unacceptable under any circumstance,” said the senators who serve as the top Democrats on national security panels.

The push comes as new footage of the attack suggested that the site of the school was likely hit by a Tomahawk missile – a weapon used by the US that Israel and Iran do not possess.

The bombing of the elementary school in Minab has become emblematic of the growing civilian death toll from the conflict.

Iranian officials have said that US and Israeli strikes have damaged other schools as well as dozens of medical centres, residential buildings, street markets, a water desalination plant and other civilian targets.

US and Israeli attacks have killed 1,255 people – mostly civilians – in Iran since the start of the war, according to Deputy Health Minister Ali Jafarian.

“They were living in their homes or [were] at their workplace,” the health minister told Al Jazeera in a TV interview.

Hegseth on rules of engagement

In their statement, the US senators noted that Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth has openly boasted about loosening the rules of engagement in the attacks against Iran to allow US forces to bomb the country with little restraint.

“Secretary Hegseth needs to ensure the Department of Defense’s ongoing investigation into this strike is thorough, including whether any policy decisions may have contributed to the catastrophe, and provide clear answers to the American public and Congress about how and why this tragedy unfolded,” they said.

The legislators – who include Brian Schatz, Jeanne Shaheen, Jack Reed and Elizabeth Warren – said the “incident and any like it must be fully and impartially reviewed”.

Last week, Hegseth told reporters that US jets are unleashing the “most lethal” strikes on Iran with “maximum authorities”.

“No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy building exercise, no politically correct wars – we fight to win, and we don’t waste time or lives,” he said on March 2.

Days later, Hegseth emphasised that the rules of engagement are meant “to unleash American power, not shackle it”.

Despite mounting evidence and multiple visual investigations by news outlets suggesting that the strike on Minab was carried out with US weapons, US President Donald Trump has accused Iran of bombing the school.

“In my opinion and based on what I’ve seen, that was done by Iran,” Trump said last week.

For his part, Hegseth has stopped short of echoing the US president’s claim, stressing on multiple occasions over the past days that the Pentagon is investigating the incident.

‘US needs to stop focusing on denial’

Annie Shiel, US director at Center for Civilians in Conflict (CIVIC), said there have been numerous incidents in recent years where the US “reflexively” denies civilian harm “only for investigations by the media, civil society, and the US military itself to prove otherwise”.

In 2021, the Pentagon initially denied killing civilians in a strike during the withdrawal in Afghanistan, calling the attack a “righteous” one that targeted ISIL (ISIS).

But weeks later, it acknowledged that the attack was a “tragic mistake” that killed 10 people, including seven children, after independent investigations confirmed the identities of the victims.

Shiel said the Trump administration is treating the “devastating” strike in Minab like a public relations issue.

“The US needs to stop focusing on denial and get to the truth about what happened and why through a thorough, transparent, independent investigation,” Shiel told Al Jazeera.

On Friday, United Nations experts condemned the Minab attack as a “grave assault on children”.

“An attack on a functioning school during class hours raises the most serious concerns under international law and must be urgently, independently, and effectively investigated, with accountability for any violations,” they said.

“There is no excuse for killing girls in a classroom.”

On February 28, the United States and Israel launched a war on Iran. The US-Israeli attacks came without prior warning or approval by the United Nations and targeted and killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Just two months earlier, the US launched another attack, on Venezuela, in which its special forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from his residence in Caracas and transferred him to New York, where he faces criminal charges in federal court.

In between these two violent attacks, US President Donald Trump withdrew from 66 international organisations, including 31 UN entities, and launched the Board of Peace, a new institution he chairs personally that he suggested might replace the UN.

These and other developments in recent years demonstrate that the world order the US helped establish in 1945 no longer serves its interests.

For eight decades, US treasure, diplomacy and military power sustained this architecture. Whatever one’s criticisms of how that power was exercised, the scale of the commitment was remarkable, and the US did not have to do this. It chose to.

The world of 2026 bears little resemblance to 1945. Europe has rebuilt. China has risen. Canada, Japan, South Korea and many Gulf States are rich. and Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, India, Vietnam and other countries are on the rise.

Today’s threats – climate change, pandemics, terrorism and others – were barely imaginable when the UN Charter was drafted. It is not unreasonable for Americans to ask why they should continue bearing a disproportionate burden for a system designed for a world that no longer exists.

The question is what the rest of the world intends to do. For too long, multilateralism has been something the US provided and others consumed. European nations sheltered under American security guarantees while criticising US foreign policy. Developing nations demanded institutional reforms while relying on American funding. Small states like those of the Caribbean invoked international law as our shield while contributing little to enforce it.

If we truly value this system, we must now demonstrate that value with resources, not merely rhetoric.

A powerful first step would be relocating the UN headquarters from New York as an acknowledgment of reality. Why should the world body remain in a nation that is withdrawing from so many of its parts and building alternatives?

Relocation would signal that the international community intends to preserve multilateralism regardless of American participation and that we are prepared to bear the costs of doing so. And there are many options for where the UN can be based. Geneva and Vienna can offer neutrality. Nairobi and Rio de Janeiro would centre the organisation in the Global South.

An island nation is also an option: Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Jamaica or Mauritius. Such a choice would underscore that this is now an institution for the vulnerable, not the powerful.

If the world can mobilise trillions for wars and bailouts, it can fund a headquarters move.

More fundamentally, the UN requires a new funding model. The US has provided roughly 22 percent of the regular budget and far more for peacekeeping. This dependency gave Washington outsized influence and made the organisation hostage to US domestic politics.

If we value multilateralism, we must fill the gap. The European Union, China, Japan, the Gulf states and emerging economies must contribute commensurate with their stake in a functioning international order. A diversified funding base would ensure survival and democratise global governance in ways long overdue.

The urgency of these reforms is underscored by the crises now unfolding. The attacks on Iran risk a wider regional conflagration that could draw in the Gulf states, disrupt global energy supplies and tip fragile economies into recession. The abduction of Venezuela’s president has destabilised Latin America and set a precedent that no sovereign leader is beyond the reach of unilateral force.

Meanwhile, the wars in Gaza and Sudan grind on, the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo remains engulfed in conflict and millions of displaced people strain the capacity of neighbouring states. In each case, the UN Security Council has proven unable or unwilling to act, paralysed by the very veto structure that privileges the powerful over the vulnerable.

A relocated and revitalised United Nations, funded broadly and no longer beholden to a single patron, would not resolve these crises overnight. But it could act with greater legitimacy and less selective morality.

It could authorise humanitarian corridors without fear that one member’s geopolitical interests will block action. It could convene emergency sessions on energy price stabilisation, coordinate debt relief for nations pushed to the brink by conflict-driven commodity shocks and deploy peacekeeping missions that are not contingent on one country’s budgetary politics. The point is not that a reformed UN would be perfect. It is that the current one is structurally incapable of responding to the very emergencies that demand collective action.

Every month of inaction widens the gap between what the institution promises and what it delivers, eroding the faith of the most vulnerable nations that multilateralism is worth defending at all.

Climate architecture also requires particular urgency of action. The American withdrawal from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change threatens the Green Climate Fund, the Adaptation Fund, and Loss and Damage mechanisms. For Small Island Developing States and other climate-vulnerable countries, these are lifelines, not abstractions.

The window for building climate finance independent of US participation is narrow, but it exists. Europe must demonstrate its climate leadership with resources. China, the world’s largest emitter, has the capacity to become a major contributor if it wishes to claim moral leadership.

For the Caribbean, this transformation demands both humility and ambition. Humility because we have long relied on frameworks we did little to fund. Ambition because we have 14 UN General Assembly votes, moral authority from the front lines of climate change and a tradition of punching above our weight.

The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) should propose a resolution on headquarters relocation and funding reform, convene like-minded states and strengthen the Caribbean Court of Justice as a regional anchor when global mechanisms falter. The blocs representing Small Island Developing States, Africa and other parts of the developing world have the numbers to reshape governance if they act in concert.

The US remains the world’s largest economy, its most powerful military force, and home to many of the institutions, universities, corporations and civil society organisations that drive global progress. Americans who believe in multilateralism remain numerous and influential. The door to renewed American engagement should always remain open.

But the rest of the world cannot wait indefinitely for US domestic politics to resolve itself. We must build institutions resilient enough to function with or without American participation.

In 1945, a war-weary and generous America chose to build rather than retreat, and that choice shaped the world we inherited. In 2026, a different America has made a different choice. We should accept it without rancour and recognise it for what it is, an invitation to finally take ownership of the international order we claim to value.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.