October 14th, 2026: Iran's Oil Exports Have Collapsed to Zero & Saudi Arabia Strikes Yemen

Mike Baker (0:12)

It's Wednesday, the 14th of October. Welcome to The President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker. Your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Iran's oil exports have reportedly collapsed to zero, and an increasingly desperate regime is lashing out with an aggressive wave of attacks on commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. Later in the show, Saudi Arabia launches a new round of airstrikes on Yemen's capital in its escalating war against the Iran-backed Houthis. Plus, five Russian ballistic missiles strike civilian infrastructure in Kiev. As President Zelenskyy says, Ukraine received no advance warning from its intelligence partners. And in today's Back of the Brief, fancy being a posh diplomat at a terrific Mediterranean country? That sounds like a good job, doesn't it? There is a job opening in Greece. Apparently, the position does not require prior experience, but ideally, you do need to be able to refrain from sketchy activity. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. Iran's economic situation is becoming increasingly desperate. After months of pressure from the American blockade, new figures indicate that the regime's oil exports have officially fallen to zero, and Tehran's response appears to be a simple one. If Iran can't sell its oil, it's going to make sure nobody else can sell theirs without paying a price. According to Reuters, new data from the energy intelligence firm Vortexa indicates that Iran has not exported a single barrel of crude oil so far in October. Now, that's based on tanker tracking data, and it doesn't necessarily capture every shipment, but it represents a remarkable deterioration in Iran's position. We've been tracking the steady decline in Iranian oil exports for months, as the American blockade has squeezed Tehran's most important source of foreign revenue. And remember, this is an economy that was already in serious trouble. Inflation has been running at extraordinary levels, the Iranian currency has lost significant value, and ordinary Iranians are facing increasingly difficult economic conditions.

Oil revenue is one of the regime's most important financial lifelines, of course. It helps fund government operations, supports the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and its various proxy groups in the region, and provides the foreign currency that Tehran needs to purchase goods from abroad. Now, according to the latest figures, that lifeline has effectively been cut off.

But while Iran's own oil shipments have reportedly ground to a halt, Tehran is stepping up its attacks against commercial vessels carrying everybody else's oil, and the scale of those attacks is becoming difficult to ignore. According to the Financial Times, ships operating in and around the Strait of Hormuz are facing the most intense wave of Iranian missile and drone attacks since the war began. The newspaper reports 24 attacks against commercial vessels over a recent two-week period. Six of those attacks occurred on the 11th of October.

The violence isn't confined to the Strait. Additional reporting from the National describes attacks against tankers near the Omani Coast, including a drone strike against a vessel near the port of Sohar. The consequences are significant. Ship owners are reconsidering whether to send their vessels through the region while energy shipments have fallen sharply. According to the Financial Times, approximately 15.5 million barrels of oil pass through Hormuz each day on average in September. On the 11th of October, that figure reportedly dropped to just 2.9 million barrels. Now, that is a comparison between a monthly average and a single day, but it illustrates just how severely the latest attacks are disrupting commercial traffic.

Here's what makes this particularly interesting. For months, Iran has been threatening to use its position near the Strait of Hormuz to impose economic costs on Washington and its regional allies. But Tehran's leverage has been weakening as other Gulf producers found ways to restore their exports, while Iran's own shipments continued declining. Now, with Iranian oil exports reportedly at a standstill, the regime appears to be taking a much more aggressive approach. If the US is going to prevent Iran from selling its oil, the regime seems determined to make the blockade as expensive as possible for everyone else. And not just the Americans, of course. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, and other Gulf producers all have enormous economic interests tied to the movement of energy through the region. So do their customers in Asia and elsewhere. By attacking commercial shipping, Iran can threaten those interests, increase the cost of transporting oil, and potentially encourage other governments to pressure Washington into easing the blockade. At least that appears to be the regime's calculation. And from Tehran's perspective, well, there may be few other options. The regime cannot realistically defeat the US in a conventional military confrontation. Its economy is under extraordinary pressure, and its ability to generate revenue from oil exports has now been severely restricted. But it still possesses missiles and drones and the ability to threaten shipping across one of the world's most important energy corridors. And that gives Iran a way to inflict damage beyond its borders, even as its own economic position continues to deteriorate.