Developing country policymakers left last week’s IMF-World Bank meetings more frustrated than ever that successive external shocks are derailing efforts to tackle high debt, reform economies and deliver better lives for millions of citizens struggling to pay for food and fuel.

But unlike in the past, some officials and economists say this crisis could be the tipping point that drives countries to take more independent and regionally coordinated action.

The war, and the meteoric spikes it caused in oil and fertilizer prices, will weigh on global growth and drive up inflation even if it ends soon, the IMF and World Bank said.

The conflict also threatens to blow out the fiscal balances of countries that had just gotten back on track after debt defaults, such as Zambia and Sri Lanka. It is also eating into the buffers others built after the pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war and U.S. trade tariffs upended their economies.

“It’s like you got hit in the head many times. Once you got up and then you got hit again,” Chayawadee Chai-anant, assistant governor of Thailand’s central bank, told Reuters.

The IMF has lowered its 2026 growth forecast for emerging nations to 3.9% from 4.2% in January, but those projections could worsen if the war persists.

Reza Baqir, head of sovereign advisory services at Alvarez & Marsal, said countries making painful reforms, from debt restructuring to subsidy removal, are now left scrambling with fiscal balances destroyed by yet another crisis not of their making.

“It’s a depressing mood, and it is also a repeated demonstration of the consequences on bystanders, where due to developments not of their own making, they have to deal with a severe economic ​crunch,” Baqir told Reuters.

Crisis rather than solutions

Nigeria is one such example. In the past three years, it has removed costly fuel subsidies, eased foreign exchange rules and streamlined regulations to draw foreign investor cash.

“We find that we are doing all we can, and it is shock after shock, externally and exogenously created,” Nigerian Finance Minister Wale Edun told Reuters. “That sort of takes away from achievements and from our progress.”

Josh Lipsky, director of economic affairs at the Atlantic Council, said conversations with dozens of other financial leaders showed their patience was wearing thin.

“I sense the frustration they can’t actually deal with the big challenges they want to deal with. They want to talk debt. They want to talk about these things that define the decade but every meeting is just a crisis. And ​I’ve just felt a different sense this time of what’s next,” Lipsky said.

The IMF and World Bank, though, offered few solutions during the week. Top leaders instead cautioned countries against using energy subsidies to shield citizens while acknowledging that the latest hike in energy and food prices could foment social unrest and outward migration.

IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said 12 or more countries are seeking loans to help weather the shock, estimating demand at $20 billion to $50 billion, depending on the duration of the war.

The World Bank said countries could tap up to $25 billion in crisis response funds quickly, with up to $60 billion available over six months. World Bank President Ajay Banga, clearly hearing urgent pleas for help, said the bank could make up to $100 billion available by year’s end, if needed, by restructuring its balance sheet.

However, neither the IMF nor the Group of 20 (G-20), which had rushed to suspend debt service payments for the poorest countries in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic, offered any new instruments.

Break the cycle

“What we saw this week was the bank and the fund effectively saying, ‘Don’t worry, we can do what we’ve done in the past,'” said Christina Segal-Knowles, a former senior White House official now with the Rockefeller Foundation.

“But you have a set of countries that are still ​vulnerable. Those tools have not put these countries back ⁠in a place where they’re sustainable.”

The world needs, she said, something that “breaks the cycle because otherwise, the next shock that we get to will be back in the same place.”

Longer-term loans, larger-scale financing and different forms of financing that allow countries to escape the “debt trap,” are also options, she said.

Edun, who also chairs the G-24 group of developing nations, called on the ​institutions to do more, but noted that amid drastic aid cuts and falling official development assistance, developing nations need to also focus on “self help, self reliance” and integration within ​regions, such as more trade on ⁠the African continent.

“I think the most important lesson is that there has to be a reliance on domestic resource mobilization within these countries,” he said during the G-24 panel.

Throughout the week, officials from Africa, Asia and Latin America said leaders in their regions were looking to boost their resilience to future energy shocks by shifting resources into renewable energy and taking advantage of other resources such as critical minerals to boost growth and create jobs.

Albert Park, chief economist of the Asian Development Bank, said Asian economies were ⁠racing to protect ​themselves from the negative effects. Vietnam and Indonesia had already announced new investments in renewable energy and others would likely follow suit, he said.

But ​leaders are under pressure to act quickly, even as they look for lasting solutions.

World Bank forecasts show that a prolonged war could push an additional 50 million people into acute food insecurity, with some 10-15 million jobs lost in the near term alone.

“The cushion has been quite low, because it’s never ​recovered back all the way, so it’s thinner and thinner and thinner…especially for the fragile people,” Thailand’s Chai-anant told Reuters.

“That’s why this crisis, I think it’s going to be more widespread.”

Bangladesh could be hit by a widespread shutdown of mobile phone services without rapid improvements in fuel shortages sparked by the Middle East war, operators said Monday.

The South Asian nation of 170 million people imports 95% of its oil and gas, mostly from the Middle East. Shortages have hit the country hard, with queues at filling stations lasting as long as 12 hours.

The Association of Mobile Telecom Operators of Bangladesh (AMTOB) said Monday that continued operations can no longer be sustained without the fuel needed to power facilities, including data centers.

“The situation has escalated beyond the operational control,” AMTOB wrote in a letter to the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission. “If these conditions persist, there is an imminent risk of large-scale telecom network shutdowns across significant parts of the country.”

The association said the impact has already begun.

“Mobile network operators are experiencing severe operational distress due to the prolonged unavailability of commercial power and the lack of assured fuel supply for backup systems,” the letter said.

AMTOB noted that data centers consume approximately 500 to 600 liters (132 to 158 gallons) of diesel per hour, amounting to nearly 4,000 liters per day per facility, which local fuel stations are unable to provide. “Multiple strategically vital telecom facilities are currently running on dangerously low fuel reserves,” the association said.

Network blackout

AMTOB Secretary-General Mohammad Zulfikar said shutdowns of data centers would create ripple effects across the wider network.

“A partial or complete network blackout could bring calls, internet, SMS and all other services to a standstill or cause severe disruption,” he told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The internet may become painfully slow or go down entirely, as data centers are the command hubs where traffic is routed and controlled.”

The government hiked fuel prices Saturday, raising diesel by 15%, from 100 to 115 taka (93 cents) a liter, and petrol by 16%, from 116 to 135 taka a liter. The increase triggered demands from bus and water transport owners for fare adjustments.

Energy Minister Iqbal Hasan Mahmud told reporters Sunday that Bangladesh had to raise prices due to the global crisis. “The entire world has adjusted prices – even the U.S.,” he said.

Depots were ordered to supply more fuel to filling stations at the revised prices, but the move has so far made little impact.

Md Sagar, 30, a motorbike driver, said he has not seen any improvement. “I waited for three hours and moved only a few meters,” he told AFP. Another driver, Zakir Mia, said it took him 16 hours Sunday to refill his car.

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Turkish conglomerate Sabancı Holding said Monday it will sell its remaining shares in cement maker Akçansa Çimento, according to an exchange filing, just days after agreeing to the sale of its shares in food retailer Carrefoursa.

Sabancı said Heidelberg Materials exercised its right of first refusal after a binding offer was made for a 39.72% stake in Akçansa, valuing the company at $1.1 billion on an enterprise value basis, subject to debt and cash adjustments.

Following the transaction, Germany’s Heidelberg Materials said its stake in Akçansa will double to 79.44%.

Akçansa operates three cement plants, 26 ready-mixed concrete plants, five aggregate quarries, and five cement terminals across five seaports in Türkiye’s Marmara, Aegean and Black Sea regions, Heidelberg Materials said.

Heidelberg Materials said Türkiye’s geographic position offers long-term strategic upside linked to future reconstruction and infrastructure demand in neighboring regions, including the Middle East and the Black Sea.

The Turkish holding also said an agreement was reached regarding the sale of its shares and shares of French retailer Carrefour in its Carrefoursa unit, a market chain operating over 1,000 stores in Türkiye.

According to the deal, Yeni Magazacılık A.Ş., owner of the A101 banner, will acquire the 89% stake held jointly by Carrefour (32%) and Sabancı (57%) in Carrefoursa.

Completion of the transaction remains subject to approval by the competition authorities and customary conditions.

Shares of Sabancı Holding were down 1.71% at 10:55 a.m. local time (07:55 GMT) while Carrefoursa stock plunged 9.38%.

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Seven weeks of war have failed to remove Iran’s leadership or force it to meet all of U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands, but for both U.S. adversaries and allies, it has cast a spotlight on one of his main vulnerabilities: economic pressure.

Even with Iran’s announcement on Friday that it was reopening the Strait of Hormuz ​to shipping, the Middle East crisis has revealed the limits of Trump’s willingness to tolerate domestic economic pain.

Trump joined Israel in attacking Iran on Feb. 28 based on what he said were imminent security threats, especially over its nuclear program. But now, ‌with U.S. gasoline prices high, inflation rising and his approval ratings down, Trump is racing to secure a diplomatic deal that could stem the fallout at home.

Iran has taken a beating militarily, but demonstrated it can exact economic costs that Trump and his aides underestimated, unleashing the worst-ever global energy shock, analysts say.

Rising energy costs, recession risks

Trump has often publicly shrugged off domestic economic concerns driven by the war.

However, he can hardly ignore that although the U.S. does not depend on one-fifth of global oil shipments that were effectively blocked by Iran’s chokehold on the strait, surging energy costs have hit U.S. consumers.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) warning of a risk of global recession adds to ​the gloom.

Pressure for a way out of the unpopular war has mounted as Trump’s fellow Republicans defend narrow majorities in Congress in the November midterm elections.

None of this has been lost on Iran’s leaders, who have used their grip on the strait to push ​Trump’s team to the negotiating table.

Analysts say U.S. rivals China and Russia may draw their own lesson: while Trump has shown an appetite for military force in his second term, he looks for a diplomatic off-ramp ⁠as soon as the economic heat becomes uncomfortable at home.

“Trump is feeling the economic pinch, which is his Achilles heel in this war of choice,” said Brett Bruen, a former foreign policy adviser in the Obama administration who heads the Global Situation Room strategic consultancy.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai ​said that while working toward a deal with Iran to resolve “temporary” energy market problems, the administration “has never lost focus on implementing the president’s affordability and growth agenda.”

“President Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.

Feeling the pressure

Trump’s abrupt shift on April 8 from airstrikes to diplomacy ​followed pressure from financial markets and parts of his MAGA base.

Some of the economic pain is borne by U.S. farmers, a key Trump constituency, due to disrupted fertilizer shipments, and is also reflected in higher airfares from increased jet fuel prices.

With the clock ticking on a two-week cease-fire, it remains to be seen whether a president who embraces unpredictability will reach a deal that meets his war goals, extend the truce beyond April 21, or relaunch the bombing campaign.

But global oil prices fell sharply and financial markets, which Trump often sees as a barometer of his success, flourished on Friday after Iran said the strait would be open for the remainder of a separate ​U.S.-brokered 10-day truce between Israel and Lebanon.

Trump was quick to declare the strait safe as he touted a deal-in-the-making with Iran that he said would be completed soon and mostly on his terms. But Iranian sources told Reuters gaps remained to be resolved.

Experts have warned that even if the ​war ends soon, the economic damage could take months if not years to fix.

A key question is whether any deal achieves the objectives Trump has laid out, including closing Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, which Tehran has long denied it is seeking.

Iran has a stockpile of highly enriched uranium believed to be buried by U.S.-Israeli ‌strikes last June. Trump ⁠told Reuters on Friday that the emerging deal calls for the U.S. to work with Iran to recover the material and bring it to the U.S. Iran denied agreeing to a transfer anywhere outside its territory.

A senior Trump administration official said the U.S. was maintaining “several redlines” in negotiations with Iran.

At the same time, Trump’s call at the war’s outset for Iranians to overthrow their government has gone unheeded.

Allies from Europe to Asia were initially stunned by Trump’s decision to go to war without consulting them or seeming to take into account the risk to them of Iran closing the strait.

“The alarm bell ringing for allies right now is how the war has highlighted that the administration can act erratically, without much regard for consequences,” said Gregory Poling, an Asia expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

After Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, former Democratic President Joe Biden was cautious about ​imposing sanctions on Moscow’s energy sector out of concern for reducing oil ​supplies and inflating U.S. gas prices.

But Trump, who ran for a ⁠second term on promises of cheap gas and low inflation, has shown himself sensitive to accusations that his policies raise prices. An example was when he reduced tariffs on China last year after it retaliated.

Miscalculations

Just as Trump misjudged Beijing’s response in a trade war, he seems to have miscalculated how Iran might strike back economically in a shooting war, by attacking energy infrastructure in Gulf states and blocking the strategic waterway between them.

Trump mistakenly ​believed the war would be a limited operation like the Jan. 3 lightning raid in Venezuela and June’s strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites, U.S. officials have said privately.

But this time the repercussions are more far-reaching.

The ​message to Asian allies such as Japan, ⁠South Korea and self-ruled Taiwan may be that Trump, who is looking for warmer ties with China, can be expected to pursue his regional goals with less regard for their geopolitical and economic security.

Analysts believe those governments will adjust for any contingency, such as a Chinese bid to seize Taiwan, out of concern over Trump’s reliability.

European countries, annoyed they are bearing so much of the economic brunt of a war that they never asked for, are likely to be even more nervous about Trump’s commitment to continued aid to Ukraine in its war with Russia, analysts say.

Gulf Arab states want the war to end soon, but will be ⁠unhappy if Trump ​cuts a deal without security guarantees for them.

“An end to this conflict should not also create a continuous instability in the region,” said Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the president ​of the United Arab Emirates.

Most MAGA supporters have stuck with Trump despite some prominent dissenting voices. But there are growing doubts whether he can help his party recover lost ground, especially with independent voters, in time for the midterms.

“He’s aware that a significant portion of the country outside his MAGA base, and even some within the MAGA base, are vehemently opposed ​to what he’s done,” said Chuck Coughlin, an Arizona-based political strategist.

“And I think the price is going to come due.”

Iran announced on Friday it fully reopened the Strait of Hormuz to commercial vessels, but U.S. President Donald Trump said the American blockade on Iranian ships and ports “will remain in full force” until a deal is reached with Tehran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi posted on X that the crucial waterway through which about 20% of the world’s oil is shipped was now fully open to commercial vessels, as a 10-day truce in Lebanon appeared to hold.

The truce offered a pause in Israeli strikes on Lebanon and could clear one major obstacle to a deal between Iran and the U.S. and Israel to end weeks of devastating war.

Trump initially celebrated, posting on social media that Iran announced the strait “is fully open and ready for full passage.” But minutes later, he issued another post saying the U.S. Navy’s blockade would continue until “UNTIL SUCH TIME AS OUR TRANSACTION WITH IRAN IS 100% COMPLETE.”

Trump imposed the blockade earlier this week after Iran restricted traffic through the strait due to Israeli strikes on Lebanon, which Iran said was a breach of the Pakistan-brokered cease-fire reached between the U.S., Israel and Iran.

At the time, Trump said the blockade would enforce an “all or none” policy in hopes of pressuring Iran to reopen the strait.

Trump’s decision to continue the blockade despite Iran’s announcement appeared aimed at sustaining pressure on Tehran, as the fate of the two-week cease-fire reached last week remains uncertain.

Direct talks between the U.S. and Iran last weekend were inconclusive, as the two nations differed over Iran’s nuclear program and other sticking points.

Trump had said on Thursday that talks with Iran could happen as soon as this weekend, although that was looking increasingly unlikely by Friday afternoon, given the logistics of assembling officials in Islamabad, where the talks are expected to take place.

The head of the International Energy Agency had warned that energy shocks could get worse if the Strait of Hormuz did not reopen. Iran closed the crucial waterway shortly after the war began, threatening the worst oil shock in history.

Oil prices plunged following Araqchi’s post.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) this week lowered its forecasts for global growth and warned the global economy risked tipping into ⁠recession if the conflict was prolonged.

Later on Friday, a senior Iranian military official said Tehran would block military vessels from transiting the Strait of Hormuz,

“The passage of military vessels through the Strait of Hormuz remains prohibited,” the official was quoted as telling Iranian state television, adding that civilian vessels would have to transit the waterway through designated routes and with permission of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Navy.

French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the Strait of Hormuz reopening, but said it must become permanent

They said they will keep planning an international mission to restore maritime security, with a meeting of military planners in London next week.

Speaking after a gathering of some 50 countries, Macron said “we all demand the full, immediate and unconditional reopening of the Strait of Hormuz by all parties.”

Starmer said the announcement by Iran and the U.S. must become “both lasting and a workable proposal.”

He said France and the U.K. will lead a multinational mission to safeguard shipping “as soon as conditions allow.”

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House sales in Türkiye declined by 2.1% year-over-year in March, according to data that also showed Iranians were the second biggest foreign homebuyers.

A total of 113,367 houses were sold last month, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) said.

The figure compares with 115,788 sales recorded a year ago.

From January through March, residential property sales stood at 349,396 units, down 0.3% year-over-year, the data showed.

Istanbul led the market last month with 21,665 sales, followed by Ankara with 10,236 and Izmir with 7,278.

New home sales rose 1.3% year-over-year to 35,725 units, while second-hand sales fell 3.6% to 77,642 units.

Mortgage-backed sales jumped 35.9% to 25,978, accounting for 22.9% of total transactions.

Sales to foreigners declined 20% year-over-year to 1,353 units.

By nationality, the highest number of houses were sold to citizens of Russia with 229 units, followed by Iran with 130, and Iraq with 84.

Iranians have been among the top homebuyers in Türkiye for years, but the focus has centered on the impact of the war that started on Feb. 28 after the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran.

The sides agreed to a two-week cease-fire last week and are weighing a return to Pakistan for further talks as early as ​the coming ​weekend.

Türkiye, a NATO member and neighbor of ​Iran, has been in close touch with ​the U.S., Iran and Pakistan, and ⁠has repeatedly called for the fighting to stop.

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