Normally, if a group was taking territory to help them limit traffic in the Bab al-Mandeb Strait while also successfully striking an important Saudi pipeline, the US would intervene militarily to keep the oil flowing. That the US so far has chosen not to directly intervene, shows what hectic times we are in with the, so far, failed war in Iran.
Trump is hoping that an agreement with the Houthis where only Saudi tankers are affected will hold.
Saudi Arabia is under attack, where are its treaty allies Turkey and Pakistan?
Before becoming president, Trump regularly said the US should have taken Iraq’s oil, ignoring the sovereignty of Iraq and proposing that the US just take other countries’ national resources by force.
It would have been wrong to dismiss comments like this by taking Trump seriously not literally. Trump literally meant that, and as president he has implemented similar policies by using military force to remove Venezuela’s former leader and actively trying to take a percentage of Venezuela’s oil for the US.
Getting Venezuela’s oil production up and running will take a tremendous amount of investment, and its unlikely that right-minded investors will invest in such a thing because it is too much money and risk if political winds change in the US or Venezuela. This means, it will likely require taxpayer money or the president strong-arming US companies.
The war against Iran has made the supply of oil low, and if something else happens like a natural disaster to decrease it further…things will be much worse.
Wildberries in Russia actively sold military equipment to Russian soldiers and they did it openly, making it a legitimate military target. Although, economic warfare is probably the main purpose of Ukrainian strikes on Wildberries, which is the Amazon of Russia.
Sanctions and attacking Russia’s shadow fleet have hurt Russia’s economy, but Russia isn’t spending less on its military, it’s just making its citizens worse off.
Blockading Iran is hurting them economically. This could get them to the negotiating table, but it could take time and is quite costly for the US to maintain, both militarily, and the economic consequences of Iran mostly closing the Strait.
If Trump did not parade around the world like an asshole, threatening and attacking allies, there could have been a chance of a blockading coalition to help convince Iran the world will not tolerate them terrorizing the Strait of Hormuz. Oh well.
China has done a better job at building resilience to bad stuff happening in the world compared to the United States. Both US market actors and politicians have been too focused on short-term incentives rather than building resilience that helps in the long-run.
The US has been putting heavy financial pressure on Iraq to crack down on Iraqi Iranian proxies who try to stop oil from flowing through pipelines through Iraq, bypassing Hormuz.