WEEK IN REVIEW: MARCH 30 TO APRIL 3, 2026
The short version of the week: a war with no exit, a missing American pilot Iran claims to have captured, a petrodollar crack showing up in real transactions for the first time, a $2 trillion IPO waiting for markets to settle, a Fed confirmation that could still be derailed, and a jobs number built on nurses returning from a strike and statistical models rather than an economy that is actually hiring. The April 6 deadline is in three days. Sunday at 6 pm EST, when gold futures open, is the first real market verdict on all of it.
THE WAR
Day 35 ended ugly. The US and Israel spent the week hitting infrastructure across Iran. The B1 bridge connecting Tehran to Karaj came down on Thursday night. US forces struck it, targeting what defense officials described as a planned military supply route for Iran's ballistic missile and drone force. The problem is that the strike happened while Iranians were out celebrating National Day, and families along the riverbank underneath it. Eight people were killed, and 95 were wounded. Trump posted the video with "Much more to follow." That tells you everything about the week's tone.
Friday morning, an F-15E from the 494th Squadron out of RAF Lakenheath got shot down over southwestern Iran. First confirmed loss of a manned US aircraft in 35 days and 13,000 combat flights. Two crew members ejected. Americans launched a massive rescue operation, C-130s and Black Hawks flying low over hostile territory in broad daylight. One crew member was recovered and is safe in US custody. The search for the second is ongoing. Iran is claiming that it captured the second crew member and offered cash to any civilian who handed him over. The US has not confirmed it. If it's true, it is the first American prisoner of war of this conflict.
Trump said three days ago there was "not a thing" Iran could do to stop US strikes. Their radar was "100% annihilated." We were "unstoppable." The F-15 went down the next morning, directly contradicting everything he and Hegseth had been saying about air dominance over Iran.
DIPLOMACY
There is none. Iran rejected a US 48-hour ceasefire proposal made on Wednesday through an unnamed intermediary country. Pakistani mediators confirmed Iran views American conditions as unacceptable and will not engage. Iran's five-point counterproposal included recognition of Iranian sovereignty over the Strait, removal of all US bases from the region, compensation for war damage, and a guarantee against further aggression. Iran's military stated publicly it is ready to fight for at least six months. The April 6 deadline is now a retaliation trigger, not a negotiation checkpoint.
THE EURO OIL DEAL
This is the most important thing that happened this week, and almost nobody is treating it that way. Iran offered EU countries oil priced in Euros, not dollars. Europe's energy bill has gone up 14 billion euros since the war started. Gas is up 70%, crude up 60% across the continent. Europe needs supply, and Iran is offering it outside the dollar system. On top of that, at least two vessels have already paid Hormuz transit fees in Chinese Yuan, with a Chinese maritime firm acting as intermediary. Deutsche Bank put out a note this week warning explicitly that this war could give rise to the petroyuan, noting that dollar dominance in global trade is built on oil being priced in dollars and that the current conflict is directly challenging that arrangement. This is not a theoretical de-dollarization story anymore. It is happening this week in real transactions.
TRUMP'S NUMBERS
Approval at 35% per YouGov and The Economist, down from 39% before the war. Reuters/Ipsos has him at 36%. Fox News disapproval is at 59%, the highest of either term on his own network. Among independents, he sits at 22%. His handling of Iran specifically is at 30%. The reason is simple: gas above $4 for the first time since 2022, the stock market at year lows, a war with no visible end. November midterms are seven months away, and these numbers will shape every decision he makes between now and then.
THE PURGE
Pam Bondi was fired as Attorney General this week. Kristi Noem had already left Homeland Security last month. Then Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff General Randy George during an active war, which is not something you do when you are winding operations down. The Atlantic reported active discussions about removing FBI Director Kash Patel, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. The timing is uncertain, and Trump has not made a final decision. The White House denied it the way the White House always denies things that turn out to be true.
Todd Blanche came in as acting Attorney General hours after Bondi's removal and immediately said it was time for the DOJ to move on from the Epstein files, calling it "a saga that lasted for the past year" that "should not be a part of anything going forward." There is a problem with that framing. The DOJ has released about 3.5 million of the roughly 6 million pages it identified. Democrats called Blanche's claim that all files have been released "a lie." Even Jesse Watters on Fox told Blanche on air "I'm not sure you totally get what people feel about that." Worth noting: Blanche was Trump's personal defense attorney through multiple criminal cases before becoming Deputy AG. He is not a neutral actor on anything that touches Trump.
THE JOBS NUMBER
178,000 jobs in March. Called a blowout everywhere. The actual underlying number is closer to 84,000. About 31,000 of those jobs are Kaiser Permanente nurses returning from a strike that had artificially crushed February. That is a mechanical reversal, not new hiring. The BLS birth-death model added an estimated 35-40,000 jobs through statistical extrapolation that does not reflect actual wartime hiring freezes. Seasonal adjustments for construction, hospitality, and retail added further noise above what a war economy in March actually produced. ADP came in at 41,000 the day before. The survey reference week was March 12, three full weeks before Liberation Day tariffs landed on April 2. The entire tariff shock that will define the second quarter does not exist in this data. It shows up in April and May. Bloomberg analysts said plainly that the supply shock from the Iran war likely will not show up in payrolls until the second half of the year. The market read it as stagflation, not strength. Gold sold off on the headline. Bitcoin fell. Oil went up.
SPACEX
SpaceX filed confidentially with the SEC on April 1 for what would be the largest IPO in history, targeting a June Nasdaq listing. The initial valuation target was $1.75 trillion. Bloomberg then reported it was raised above $2 trillion. The raise is expected to be $75-80 billion, more than three times the previous record set by Saudi Aramco. Starlink crossed 10 million subscribers with $10 billion in revenue in 2025, projected to hit $22-24 billion in 2026. They merged with xAI in February. Thirty percent of shares are going to retail investors, three times the usual allocation, and demand is expected to be 10-20 times oversubscribed. The June timeline requires markets to stabilize first. A post-war recovery landing at the same time as the SpaceX IPO would be the single largest risk-on event of 2026.
WARSH
The White House formally transmitted Warsh's nomination to the Senate on March 30. The Senate Banking Committee is planning its confirmation hearing for the week of April 13, contingent on paperwork being completed. Senator Tillis is still blocking the nomination until the DOJ drops its criminal investigation into Powell, which complicates the whole timeline. Markets are currently pricing no rate cut for at least 16 months and only 50 basis points of cuts through all of 2026, meaning the market is skeptical that Warsh can actually deliver on Trump's demands even after he is confirmed. Powell's term expires May 15. If Tillis holds firm and the hearing slips, there is a real scenario where Powell is still running the Fed past that date.
