How Trump’s war on Iran is jeopardising Asia’s remittance lifeline

There seems to be no end to the harm arising from US President Donald Trump’s madcap war on Iran. Go beyond the direct tragic impact across Iran itself, the collateral damage from Tehran’s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and its ad hoc assaults on US allies in the region: beyond the burgeoning impact of shortages of oil, gas, hydrogen, helium and sulphur, and the prospect of food shortages arising from the collapse in fertiliser supplies; beyond the hardships of tens of thousands of seamen stranded on ships anchored around the strait.Beyond all these, perhaps the most underappreciated dimension of the conflict is the mounting damage to huge migrant worker communities and the billions of dollars in remittances they send home monthly.Around 200 million international migrant workers are thought to remit funds that support 800 million people back at home. The International Labour Organization says migrant workers make up close to 5 per cent of the global labour force; the World Bank puts officially recorded remittances to low- and middle-income countries at US$685 billion in 2024, more than aid or foreign investment.