As President Donald Trump warns Iran against using mines to threaten oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. Navy’s purpose-built minesweepers are sitting stateside thousands of miles away with no plans to put them to use while the war rages on. As gas prices in the U.S. continued to skyrocket, Trump on Tuesday took to Truth Social to demand that Tehran “immediately” remove any mines placed in the vital seaway and to do so “forthwith” lest the Iranian military suffer “consequences … at a level never seen before.” That warning came after multiple news outlets reported Iran had begun mining the strait, a narrow waterway that is the only passage from the Persian Gulf into open ocean. He also threatened to use drone strikes to “permanently eliminate any boat or ship attempting to mine the Hormuz Strait” and boasted of having done so against 10 Iranian “inactive mine-laying boats” in a separate post several minutes later.
You think America, one of the largest oil producers in the world, really cares all that much that Saudi Arabia and Iraq can’t get their oil out? You realize they are making money on this, right? The US has no interest in opening the straight. Why do you think they started a war to close it?
Not all oil and its child products are created equal.
There are serious knock on effects occurring right now that we won’t see the impact of for a month or two as companies burn through their inventory
Machine oils/lubricants, aviation fuels and of course fuel. Not to mention LNG, fertilisers and other petrochemical feedstock.
In fairness, the Trump admin didn’t think about any of those things either.
I did not realize that! Given how sensitive America voters are to gas prices, I guess they’re relying on voter suppression.
Who exactly does benefit from closing the strait other than Iran?
The two largest oil producers outside of the gulf: The United States of America and Russia.