The mission of keeping the Strait of Hormuz safe from Iranian attacks on civilian ships is a burdensome and dangerous mission. The US needs to focus on protecting its carriers until the Iranian threat is further diminished.
Iran is predictably limiting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as a result of Trump’s attack on Iran, sending oil prices higher. Removing the Jones Act won’t move the needle while the war drives oil prices higher.
W Bush focusing on fighting insurgencies while China was rising, led to the US not having the military industrial base and stockpiles of certain munitions. If the US uses too many munitions fighting Iran, it will be greatly weakened for a fight against China. This also weakens US deterrence against China.
However, if Iran is in too much chaos to pump oil, or if it is friendly enough with the US that in the event of a China-US war it would not sell oil to China, that would be a huge advantage in starving China of oil in the event of a war.
Shipping in the Strait of Hormuz is limited, but not closed. In the Red Sea, shipping could go a longer way around, but there is no alternative route for shipping in and out of the Persian gulf. This will likely increase the price of oil.
High tech chips and lenses need super pure quartz, and the purest quartz in the world is found in the US. To turn it into usable silicon requires a smelting process that only a few masters know how to pull off.
Fracking creates an ingredient for plastic, and fracking companies can’t release that into the air because it is bad for the environment, so plastic companies get the ingredient to plastic super cheap from fracking companies, making new plastic cheaper than recycled plastic.
“Trump has reportedly homed in on $50 a barrel as the price he’d like to see US oil prices trend toward, alleviating energy costs for US households.
The problem for the US oil industry? That math doesn’t check out.
In the Permian Basin, the largest collection of oil plays in the continental US and the crown jewel of American energy, breakeven prices hover between $62 and $64, according to data from the Dallas Federal Reserve.
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As a wave of global oversupply gluts the oil market, the Energy Information Administration expects that Brent crude (BZ=F) — the international benchmark — will fall toward an average of $55 per barrel within the first quarter of 2026 and remain at that depressed level throughout the year.
WTI prices would almost certainly move in tandem, pegging its value around $51.50.”