Moody's Chief Economist: If the Strait of Hormuz blockade continues, a recession in the US economy will be difficult to avoid According to TechFlow on March 17th, Mark Zandi, Chief Economist of Moody's, one of the three major credit rating agencies in the United States, warned that as long as the Strait of Hormuz effectively maintains a blockade on oil tanker transportation, the outlook for the US economy will continue to deteriorate; If the situation does not change within a few weeks, a recession in the US economy will be difficult to avoid. Zandi pointed out that prior to the outbreak of the Iran conflict, Moody's leading indicators based on machine learning had already shown a 49% probability of the United States falling into recession in the next 12 months, and it is expected that the next data release will reach or exceed 50%. At the same time, he stressed that every economic recession since World War II (except during the COVID-19 epidemic) has witnessed a surge in oil prices. The current situation is different from 2022- at that time, the United States was in a post pandemic stimulus driven growth cycle, providing a buffer for the Federal Reserve to quickly raise interest rates; However, the current US economy no longer has this support, with weak employment data and a GDP growth rate of only 0.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025. At present, several investment banks still maintain the probability of recession in the range of 30% to 40%, and the Yadni research team recently raised the probability of market collapse from 20% to 35%. The S&P 500 index rose 1% on Monday, closing at 6699.38 points, as Wall Street as a whole has not yet priced a recession.