I co-authored this piece with my good friend Daniel J. Arbess, founder and CEO of Xerion Investments and Lifetime Member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

"A Real Deal of the Century: How the Iran War Could Forge a U.S.-China Global Joint Stabilization Initiative for Trade, Security and Existential Risk."

The thesis: in a matter of days, a single near-nuclear rogue state severed global supply chains, spiked energy prices, and destabilised nuclear security across three continents. What the Iran war has laid bare is that Washington and Beijing now share a set of vulnerabilities so fundamental that the case for a Joint Stabilisation Initiative writes itself.

The window is Xi and Trump meeting bilaterally in late April or May. The NPT Review Conference opens April 27. Expectations are low for both. The war has rewritten what is possible.

The framework: trade normalisation with tariffs aligned to WTO norms. A critical minerals accord securing US access to Chinese rare earth processing in exchange for joint diversified extraction investment. A maritime security pact enshrining freedom of navigation with Japan, South Korea, India, and the Gulf states as co-signatories. A nuclear framework establishing a moratorium on fissile material production, bringing China into trilateral arms negotiations with Russia, and concerted action on Iranian stocks and North Korean denuclearisation. Energy ties expanding US LNG exports to China, seeding joint clean technology ventures, and harmonising strategic reserves against future shocks.

This is not idealism. This is arithmetic. The IEA said this morning that 40 energy assets across nine countries are severely damaged, that the crisis exceeds both 1970s oil shocks combined, and that no country is immune. Fatih Birol named fertilisers, helium, sulfur, and petrochemicals as interrupted flows. China depends on the Strait of Hormuz for 40 percent of its seaborne oil and 30 percent of its LNG. The US has been forced to become the insurer of last resort for global energy maritime security at a cost now exceeding $200 billion in supplemental requests. As Secretary Rubio said at Munich: MAGA does not mean America Alone.

The sceptics will invoke mistrust and rivalry. They are not wrong. But the Iran war has introduced a new variable. A rogue regime's blockade has inflicted more economic damage in weeks than years of tariffs ever could. The lesson is not that Washington and Beijing trust each other. The framework does not require them to. It requires only that each side recognise what disorder now costs.

Fissile stocks surviving successive strikes. A vital strait sealed. Global reserves drained. Forty assets destroyed across nine countries. Primorsk burning on the Baltic. Fertiliser blocked. Helium bottled. The invoice for inaction is being paid by both nations, the Gulf allies, Israel, Europe, and every farmer waiting for urea in South Asia.

Trump just paused the power plant strikes for five days citing "productive conversations." The window is open. It is narrow. Read the full piece. -