Brent Crude rose 6.6 per cent to $107.80 on 3 April, according to Reuters and Bloomberg. March's gain of roughly 55 per cent is the largest monthly increase since Brent's inception in 1988. Iraqi oil exports via the Ceyhan pipeline dropped 43 per cent from 236,000 to 135,000 barrels per day, an independent supply shock unrelated to Hormuz. QatarEnergy halted downstream urea production; urea now trades at roughly $700 per metric tonne, up from $400-490 before the war.
The economic pressure is inseparable from the legal corridor now narrowing. General License U (GL-U), issued by US Treasury, expires 19 April, removing the legal basis for 128 million barrels of Iranian crude currently in transit. Congress returns from recess mid-April. The War Powers Resolution 60-day clock, which started around 28 February, reaches its threshold near 29 April. The 6 April power grid deadline is expiring with no extension yet announced.
Prior extensions came 2-3 days in advance. Trump declared the nuclear goal attained on 1 April. Iran's same-day IAEA suspension vote, and three previous deadline extensions, show neither side has the domestic political room to accept the other's framing. The 6 April expiry could be extended a fourth time, enforced with power grid strikes, or allowed to lapse without comment. Allowing it to lapse would erode the deadline mechanism entirely.
Pezeshkian published an open letter to the American public on 1 April asking whose interests are served by continued war. Axios reported US-Iran indirect talks continue through Pakistan after the Kharazi strike, citing three US officials. The diplomatic and legal tracks are running in parallel with an escalating military one. April's convergence is when those tracks intersect in ways that constrain all parties simultaneously.
