If you haven’t read Ed’s piece about Trump’s blockade of Iran’s shipping, do so now.
The blockade is doing exactly what it is intended to do, and it is only a day old.
For weeks, we have all been reading about how Iran holds all the high cards, and once Trump agreed to a cease-fire, think pieces that bordered on outright celebration of the “fact” that Iran’s survival showed that it had won a war that was not over yet. Our “friends” and “allies” have sided with Iran, and Pravda Media has been pumping out pro-Iran propaganda at a steady pace.
Europeans placed their bets on Iran and are posturing about how they are going to clean up Trump’s mess. explicitly excluding the United States and inviting China to participate in the naval control of the Gulf.
A European mission to secure the Strait of Hormuz apparently conceived by Macron
– taking place only AFTER hostilities have ceased
– only operating with Iran’s agreement
– explicitly excluding the US
– China is invited to participatehttps://t.co/KWbzMBGTL2— Ulrich Speck (@ulrichspeck) April 15, 2026
The thing is, it’s all an illusion, and as the Trump blockade begins to bite, Iran is having a hissy fit because, as I have said for two days now, it’s the economy, stupid. All that bombing accomplished one goal: weakening Iran’s ability to exercise military force and creating the conditions for a factional breakdown of the Iranian government’s unity.
Breaking | Exclusive:
After the Iranian delegation returned from Pakistan empty-handed – President Pezeshkian erupted, shouting at members of the delegation.In an exclusive quote obtained by us, he told associates:
“We are weeks away from collapse. They are cutting off our main… pic.twitter.com/ohlfzAdces— דרור בלאזאדה | Dror Balazada (@DBalazada) April 14, 2026
Breaking | Exclusive:
After the Iranian delegation returned from Pakistan empty-handed – President Pezeshkian erupted, shouting at members of the delegation.
In an exclusive quote obtained by us, he told associates:
“We are weeks away from collapse. They are cutting off our main source of income – I don’t know how we will pay salaries.”
According to my sources, Pezeshkian is on the verge of a nervous breakdown and is demanding a deal – at any cost.
As I wrote yesterday, Iran’s economy is on the verge of collapse, with just weeks left before it crumbles. Iran is not Cuba or Venezuela—it is a relatively wealthy and modern country, as such things go, and its oil infrastructure is designed in such a way that a sustained period of time during which it is unable to export oil will not only cut off hundreds of millions of dollars a day in income, but the oil wells themselves will lose productivity if they have to shut down.
The oil must flow, or it will stop flowing. I don’t have the physics worked out, but it appears the wells cannot lie idle without degrading. A temporary production stoppage leads to permanent damage, threatening the economy well into the future.
Iran’s central bank has warned President Masoud Pezeshkian that rebuilding the country’s war-damaged economy could take more than a decade, sources familiar with internal deliberations told Iran International.https://t.co/HiN3sw2zrW pic.twitter.com/9mjTD8vaF3
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) April 13, 2026
So the clock is ticking, and the Iranians are being squeezed much harder than most people know, which is why the civilian government is panicked. The whole “wait it out, charge tolls at the Strait” strategy is not going to work. There will be no tolls, no exports, no imports, and the United States is clearing the Strait of mines.
Shipping traffic is still slow but picking up. And all the bragging about Iranian ships breaking the blockade turned out to be bunkum. Yesterday, everybody was crowing about the Starry Flight, a ship bound for China, sailing through the Strait. That was based on a misunderstanding of the blockade. The US isn’t blockading the Strait. We are blockading Iranian shipping, and once the ship got into the Gulf of Oman, we turned it around.
The blockade is real. Iran is screwed.
I honestly thought this map was made up
Hundreds of supertankers, the kind that carry two million barrels each, are currently racing toward the US Gulf Coast from every direction. Atlantic, Indian Ocean, around Africa, the scenic route, the “we were heading to Saudi Arabia but… pic.twitter.com/hcWgTi2eti
— Jesús Enrique Rosas (@Knesix) April 11, 2026
I honestly thought this map was made up
Hundreds of supertankers, the kind that carry two million barrels each, are currently racing toward the US Gulf Coast from every direction. Atlantic, Indian Ocean, around Africa, the scenic route, the “we were heading to Saudi Arabia but NVM” route.
Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz and everyone panicked. Oil hit $126 a barrel. Gas hit $4 a gallon. Cable news did the thing where they put a red banner on screen and say “CRISIS” in a font that suggests you should be hoarding toilet paper.
And then something happened that nobody in media seems interested in reporting, for obvious reasons. The world just… switched suppliers? Like changing your internet provider except the internet provider is the entire effing global energy economy.
American oil exports are approaching record levels. Gulf Coast refineries are running at 95% capacity. Supertankers that were mid-ocean on their way to the Persian Gulf literally turned around and headed to Texas. That’s not a metaphor. Ship tracking data shows them doing U-turns in the Indian Ocean.
Meanwhile China, which was getting 45% of its oil imports through Hormuz and paying basement prices for sanctioned Iranian crude, is now competing with Japan and Europe for the same expensive American barrels. Chinese manufacturers are already raising prices 20% on goods headed to the US.
So to summarize: Iran played its biggest card and the main result is that the United States became the world’s emergency gas station and China’s cheap energy subsidy evaporated.
This is either the most elaborate coincidence in the history of geopolitics… or someone planned the sequence Venezuela -> Iran -> profits!
Iran’s useful idiots have been celebrating a fantasy world in which Iran had the upper hand and would win the war. They even, somehow, believed that the Central Command, which has been updating its war plans in Iran for 47 years, had developed no strategy to deal with a closure of the Strait of Hormuz. They were shocked, taken aback, flummoxed, and even idiotic.
The Central Command is not filled with idiots. Witness the bombing campaign, which devastated Iran in four weeks.
The Iran strategy has always been based on strategic resolve and patience, accompanied by a ruthlessness not seen in American warfare in generations. Perhaps the useful idiots thought that Trump would conduct the war as Europeans would, and hence would lose. Perhaps they believe their own BS about Trump being too deranged and mercurial to have thought this through.
It’s hard to say, but they miscalculated. Which is why Iran will reopen negotiations later this week. Unlike its “friends” in Europe, Iranian leaders know that they are on the brink of meeting their doom.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE are determined to see Iran weakened to the point of irrelevance. They aren’t siding with Europe on this one and will remember being stabbed in the back. They are tied closer to the United States than at any point in history, and are ready to deal with Israel.
The last domino to fall is the will of the IRGC. When it falls is totally unpredictable, but they have only weeks to save the Iranian economy. American consumers are paying a price right now, but $4 gas compared to total economic collapse is a competition we can easily win.
Who are the big losers? Iran, of course. But also our European “allies,” and China. If Trump holds out, he and our allies in the Gulf come out winners.
Editor’s Note: For decades, former presidents have been all talk and no action. Now, Donald Trump is eliminating the threat from Iran once and for all.
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