The latest batch of economic data raises the question: Is the U.S. economy heading somewhere bad?

Just when the U.S. economy appeared to have circumvented steep increases in tariffs, it now faces a new global shock amid the conflict with Iran. The price of oil fluctuated wildly this week between $120 a barrel and $90.

There’s no end to the war in sight — nor in the rhetoric from America and Iran, whose bad blood goes back to 1979.