Transcription
So I have anticipated for some time that between the change in American politics on one hand and the reshaping of the American Navy on the other, that the US was going to get out of the freedom of the seas business and move into a more mercenary approach where it selectively enforces or blocks freedom of the sea to match its needs.
And here we now have the US president saying expressly that they're going to stop shipments in and out of the Persian Gulf unless and until Iran basically capitulates and lets everyone through. This is either the smartest thing that Donald Trump has ever come up with, or just another kneejerk allergic reaction to him not getting his way.
But if it happens, it really doesn't matter what his motivation is because this will become the template for American strategic power projection moving forward, and it will radically change what is possible in terms of global commerce with a lot of it simply going away in this sort of structure.
Now, there's still a lot of details to work out. If a ship comes out, do they board it? Do they sink it? These are things that the United States is going to have to think about in the future.
And when you consider that a lot of the shipments that are coming through right now are part of the shadow fleet, what do you do with a ship when its ownership has been specifically obscured so it can operate in and out of say Iranian waters, Russian waters, Chinese waters, Indian waters. All of a sudden there is a bit of a thorny thing to worry about.
Or you could just choose to ignore it all, grab the ship, confiscate its cargo, and sell it for scrap. That's probably what I would do if I were president for a day.