Over the past year and a half, Trump frequently issued maximal threats against various trading partners to varying degrees of success. Although Trump earned a well-deserved reputation for backing off his most alarming threats (taking control of Greenland, forcing Brazil to call off its election fraud case against former President Jair Bolsonaro), many trading partners acquiesced to Trump’s terms.
But Iran is following China’s model instead.
Trump last spring dialed up China’s tariffs so high that it created a virtual embargo on Chinese goods to the United States. China retaliated by restricting exports of rare-earth minerals critical to a wide range of electronics, threatening US businesses, consumers and even the military.
Trump relented and brought tariffs way down – in exchange for China’s pledge to reopen the rare-earth floodgates. But China never backed down, hanging onto its trump card, despite Trump’s repeated threats to raise tariffs again – a power the Supreme Court recently blunted.
Iran, similarly, views control over the Strait of Hormuz as the one piece of leverage it wields over the United States as a tool to stop an existential war and bring America to the negotiating table.
His tariff playbook doesn’t work for tariffs either.
“I’m going to punish those nations by making Americans pay more tax.” And then finding that the tariffs didn’t work because America doesn’t actually make those products or if they do they’re so inferior that people would rather pay the much higher price for imported goods.
Yeah, tariffs don’t work like he thinks they do. EVERYBODY told him that, except the fraud with the fake book on tariffs, but he’s a stable genius, so he ignored them, and listened to the fraud.
If the article accurately frames Iran’s approach, then I’d wager it’s a pretty high risk gamble given the current administration’s approach to international politics.
The US administration is full of neo fascists, who openly laud fascist historical leaders. They view the EU as a geopolitical adversary, and Russia as a geopolitical friend. Hegseth promoting the “greater technate of america” is basically in complete alignment with Putin’s world view.
America’s goals in Iran ‘could’ potentially be as simple as “Make Europe feel pain, and sow discord amongst EU members by enticing some to rebuild ties with Russia for oil”. Pair that with their exposed chat leak during the yemen bombing, and a second goal could be “Remove US military assets from the region, or get significant funding increases from nations that directly benefit from open trade routes in that region”. That second goal aligns with Trump’s whole “Maybe we’ll partner with Iran to charge a toll” comments from a couple days ago, as well as the demands for large contributions from gulf states. The countries feeling the most impact of the disruption, are basically viewed as “Freeloaders who took advantage of the US maintaining global order, while not contributing enough to US coffers”.
In other words, Iran blockading the Strait is a win for the broader objectives of the USA; those objectives differ from, and are in direct opposition to, Western democratic interests – because the USA is increasingly a fascist dictatorship.
The only reason China’s approach worked, is that the USA directly needed those rare earths – if those rare earths were only needed by other western democracies, the USA likely wouldnt’ve cared. The USA also likely recognises that a direct conflict with China would be catastrophic for the USA. This explains why they’re letting sanctioned Chinese boats pass through the American “blockade” without hassle. And lastly, China’s role as an authoritarian anti-individualist “rule an area of the map according to Putin’s plan”, gives China a lot more leverage than Iran.
“playbook” is a generous use of that term
Seriously, should be “coloring book”.
Though I highly doubt Trump could stay in the lines, so even that is probably a stretch
Lines are tough when drawing with a sharpie.
I would expect Trump to be more a finger-painting kind of guy.
We can buy stuff from Iran?
Not directly, but the oil that passes through the Strait allows trucks to deliver things.
This is a great example of how everyone tends to overlook the indirect consequences of things. I can barely list all the ways the straight being closed directly hurts us, let alone all the indirect ways.
