Business Rundown: Trump Arrives At G7, Israel-Iran Conflict & Trade High On The Agenda
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I'm Taylor Riggs, and this is the Fox Business Rundown. ♪

Monday, June 16th, 2025. Over the weekend, President Trump arrived in Canada for the G7 summit, where issues like the Israel-Iran conflict and U.S. tariffs are expected to be high up on the agenda. The way things are going right now, the momentum is shifting. We've heard from the European Union that they're getting ready to make an offer. So I

You know, I think the trade deals are going to be coming fast and furious and G7 may be it. The 2025 G7 summit is underway with a group of seven leaders from Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK and the United States meeting this year in Alberta, Canada.

This summit of the world economic powerhouses will have much to discuss Monday and Tuesday. One particular focus for the U.S. at this conference will be President Trump's tariffs and calls for trade deals, with a senior U.S. official telling reporters last week that the president will be at the G7 working on making America's trade relationships fair and reciprocal.

But the tariffs may have become the second most pressing matter for these world leaders who are now grappling with how to handle the latest conflict we are seeing out of the Middle East. On Monday, Iran continued their missile and drone attacks on Israel following Israel's strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and top generals.

The hostilities initially rattled markets last week, with investors trying to forecast the impact this conflict may have on the supply chain flow of oil out of the Middle East. All of this certain to be discussed by President Trump and the other world leaders as the G7 continues.

All right, Phil, you know, you wake up on a Monday and we thought, who should we ask to talk to us today? There is no better person than you because the front page, the headlines, it's all really about oil, Israel, Iran. What people can make of this? What should consumers be expecting at the gas pump?

So maybe first just talk to us about Friday. We had a huge jump in oil prices, in oil-related stocks. How should I as a consumer be thinking about the way that this impacts me?

Well, I definitely think it's going to impact you. It's going to cost you more money. But the good news is it's not as bad as a lot of people feared it might have been. Phil Flynn is a senior energy market analyst at the Price Futures Group and a Fox Business contributor. And I'm pleased to say he joins me now.

I mean, we've been watching this thing pretty much around the clock since this conflict has begun, since Israel is going after Iran. And the most amazing thing that's happened with all the bombs that are flying and the attacks from Israel, the attacks on oil infrastructure have been minimal.

And so it seems like both sides in this conflict have a vested interest not to destroy the oil fields, not to destroy as little refineries as they can that has an international impact.

And it's amazing, you know, Iran's oil exports are still flowing. So, you know, while we are going to see an increase at the gas pump because of this, you know, anywhere from, you know, five to eight cents a gallon, it's not going to be like, you know, you know, five dollars a gallon, like some people feared would happen in this type of situation. So I want to talk a little bit about the oil fields, because I woke up and there were a few pieces of analysis that stuck out to me.

The first was Israel was attacking oil and gas fields in Iran for domestic consumption, not international exports, because, again, not wanting to disrupt international trade. We're also hearing maybe that Iran's biggest source of revenue is selling their oil to China. So they don't want to be blocking the Strait of Hormuz, which I believe accounts for about 20 percent of the global oil trade.

They don't want to take off China and they don't want to hurt their own revenue. So is that what you're getting at? We can be confident that oil trade, oil flow from an international perspective is the risk is muted in that sense.

Absolutely. And it's in everybody's interest, even Iran's interest, to not let that happen. And you're right. You pointed out that China is their best customer and they don't want to cut off their best customer. And at the same time, you have to really respect the job the Israeli military does.

did in carrying this operation out. And they've really severely limited Iran's ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz, even if they wanted to, right? They've taken out their major generals, they've taken out one third of their missile ballistic systems.

And so even if Iran had an inkling that they wanted to do that, militarily, they couldn't do it at this point. So, you know, unless there's some type of Houthi rebel attack, you know, the likelihood of that straight getting shut down is minimal. And so you're absolutely right. It was in nobody's interest to take out the oil fields on both sides. Even if you get a regime change in Iran...

The new regime is going to need oil to rebuild. And if the same regime stays there, they know that's their only source of revenue. So I think that's what we're seeing here right now. You mentioned consumers could see an increase of five to eight cents a gallon at the pump.

I think my question for you is when and how long lasting? Because already today we're seeing, you know, oil still between 70 to 75 a barrel, but we're not at 90 a barrel. We're not at $100 a barrel.

And we were at 70, 75 dollars a barrel, I think just a few years ago under the Biden administration. So, again, how much of an impact and when I mean, is it also because it's peak driving season? If I'm a consumer right now, when do I start to think that prices are going to go up?

Well, I'd go fill your tank today, you know, because I think they're already starting to move up. But you're right. I mean, not like the doomsday scenarios of what could have happened, you know, where gas prices could have gone up 50 cents a gallon or a dollar a gallon.

And I think it's going to be short lived. I think the pop right now, the way things are going on the ground and there is even late reports today that is causing the prices to cool down that Iran is already kind of waving the white flag. They're reaching out saying, hey, guys, we might want to de-escalate this situation.

Whether or not Israel will agree to that before they take out their nuclear facilities is a different question, but that's already impacting the price.

So, so many times, you know, when we imagine these war scenarios and this, you know, Israel attacking Iran is one that we've worried about for decades. The way that this has played out so far, it really will have a lot less impact than anybody could have guessed just a few years ago if they were predicting this kind of scenario.

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I also want to talk about the G7, the group of seven top nations. Trump is already there. And we thought it would be about trade deals and tariffs and maybe Russia, Ukraine. And then with everything that happened over the weekend, we absolutely think Israel and Iran will be front and center.

Even the German chancellor over at the G7 coming out with a headline saying that Europeans will suggest to communicate that Iran cannot possess nuclear weapons and Israel has the right to defend itself. Does that surprise you? Is there anything new there? Is it helpful that you have a G7 that is in agreement that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon?

It's a surprise, and it's a welcome surprise.

And I think it's a testament to the foreign policy of Donald Trump, right? For him to be able to bring the world together with the realization, you know, along with Israel that, you know, that they will actually put in writing that Iran can have a nuclear weapon is probably one of the great diplomatic achievements of recent years, if not in my lifetime, right?

I think Donald Trump gets a lot of credit for that, right? I think the way that he has handled this. And the other thing I think that was amazing to me was that Syria over the weekend actually allowed Israel to use their airspace.

That never would happen if Donald Trump didn't reach out to the president of Syria. And yeah, the president of Syria was a bad guy. Everybody said, don't do it. But I think President Trump has a bigger vision about the world. And it looks like the Trump vision is really paying dividends and bringing the world together and not pushing them apart, you know, the way that

the previous administration's foreign policy seem to do? So I want to talk about that because to me, Iran seems extremely more isolated today than they were a week ago. You have Hezbollah, who's based primarily in Lebanon. They came out over the weekend. They said, we're staying out of this one, even though Hezbollah is a proxy to Iran. They were like, we don't want to get involved. We're out. As you mentioned, Syria opening up airspace to Iran.

and American jets, which would have been unheard of just a few years ago. Does this all come back to Trump's trip to the Middle East a few months ago, where it was all about investments in AI and opening up the Middle East and Saudi Arabia and Dubai and Qatar and Israel?

But, you know, but now in hindsight actually looks like that trip to the Middle East was really to shore up support to make sure we knew who are our allies, who are our friends ahead of what now we understand is was the 60 day deadline that we knew Iran was not going to meet and going to the Middle East to make sure that we had our ducks in a row over there to really further isolate Iran and single them out. Right.

I think you're absolutely right. And again, Trump's foreign policy is very insightful, the way that you picked that out. And yes, I mean, a few years ago, if this situation would happen, you would have had screaming and yelling from so many countries. The United Nations would be up in arms. All the Arab League countries would be going crazy right now. But that's not happening, right? Even China, yes, they've come out against the attack

But but likely so. Right. Iraq has come out, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, all these countries that you would expect to come out against the tax. Saudi Arabia even came out across the attack while they're helping Israel with the attack. So the response has been historically calm.

Iran has to know that they don't have very many friends left in the world and they are isolated and probably the most isolated since Donald Trump was in office the first time and did the Abraham Accords. That was the first time they were isolated. Now they're back on their own. And that shows you that strong foreign policy matters, especially in the Middle East.

In the few minutes that we have left, I know that most of your analysis has been on these energy markets. But because we've talked about the G7, you know, we've talked a lot about tariffs and any impact we may or may not see from tariffs on inflation. We have not yet seen it show up in our inflationary data here in the U.S. But with the G7 meeting, is there anything that you're looking out for when it comes to trade deals, to tariffs?

you know, that may impact your world of energy, commodities, your world of inflation, anything that we should be looking out for? I think this is going to be the liberation day too, right? The big deal day. That's what I think. I think we're going to see some big deals come out of this meeting. I think President Trump is going to come out with a deal with Canada and

I think things are going to ease up and that's a huge, big deal. And yeah, I think we're going to be surprised the way things are going right now. The momentum is shifting. We've heard from the European Union that they're getting ready to make an offer. So, you know, I think the trade deals are going to be coming fast and furious and G7 may be it. But, you know, you also, you also, Taylor, hit one of my pet peeves.

And this is something that's been driving me nuts since the tariffs went in place. When we hear from all these economists saying the tariffs are inflationary, it's going to cause inflation.

I've been ripping my hair out. It's like, get an economic history book. Tell me when in history have tariffs been inflationary? In fact, I might even argue they're deflationary. I've heard that. Sure, they cost, yeah, some prices are going to go up, but some prices are going to go down. Grain prices, for example, during the first Trump administration, because of the conflict with China, prices collapsed and they went down.

People have to realize that tariffs are more like a tax, but the only real cause of inflation is out of control government spending. And if you want to get that, I mean, look at Washington, look at the last administration. That causes inflation. Tariffs do not. You could argue they may slow the economy a little bit. You may argue that it'll raise some prices and

creates some dislocations, but as a whole, it generally causes prices to go down. And I think that's been proven on the early returns of the inflation data. Well, Phil Flynn, this was such a pleasure. How lucky are we that we get all of your expertise to dissect more crazy headlines coming out over the weekend? And as this Israel LeBron thing continues to play out, love having you and your insights. Thank you so much for joining us.

It's so good. I'm always lucky when I get to hang out with you. I'm telling you. There you go. Hey, I'm Trey Gowdy, host of the Trey Gowdy Podcast. I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcast.com.