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The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel. The most important aspect of the "toll" is
by johnohara 6mo ago
The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel.
The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars.
If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy.
- ardit33 6mo agoNo one in the US asked for this. Such a dumb move from the current administration.
- duskdozer 6mo agoThe traders with a five-minute preview of trump's tweets beg to differ
- beej71 6mo agoI've often wondered why the stock market oscillates while Trump is in office. If I just knew a little in advance...
- eigenspace 6mo agoWho could have possibly guessed that when voting for fascists, they'd start doing the same thing as all the other fascists.
- dsign 6mo agoYou can’t say that. Trump is very inconsistent and a consummated liar, so plenty of people didn’t believe on his promises to deliver fascism. And plenty of people did believe on his promise to end wars. /s Whether your little black heart wishes concentration camps or you’re just hoping your paycheck goes a bit further, voting for a con man is a terrible idea.
- eigenspace 6mo agoYou write "/s" but that's unironically the logic a lot of these idiot enablers use. "Oh he's just trolling", "it's a negotiation tactic, didn't you read his book?", "chill out, it's just a joke", "but what about OBAMA!?"
- ozgrakkurt 6mo agoI mean it can't be worse than Biden right? RIGHT?
- fogzen 6mo agoYeah who could have guessed electing a narcissistic moron surrounded by incompetent clowns would result in dumb moves?
- samrus 6mo agoIt would legitimately be hilarious though if the result of this conflict was iran being the one to enact regime change. In terms of the global order
- sysguest 6mo agoThat's what will happen due to iran's dickhead move... Being bombed does not mean it can target non-combatant countries without consequences... Nor does it mean it can start tolling ships $2M per voyages... Now that current iran regime has learnt it can do those things... what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have? Form a coalition against iran, and send troops to change the regime... even if US backs away, the others will finish the job
- usrbinbash 6mo ago> iran's dickhead move... Remind me again, which country started this whole mess? > what choice do the gulf nations, or even all the asian+european (strait users) nations have? They can go "yeah, you know, the US has been less than reliable as an ally recently, what with absurd tariffs, saber rattling around greenland, belitteling NATO, etc., and they seem unwilling to change, so we're just gonna pay the piper, and get oil, and make arrangements with the Chinese (aka. the worlds most powerful industry), and if they US doesn't like it, that sounds like a them-problem..." What's very likely not gonna happen, is other countries fighting the US's war for them. NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers. And anyone who wants to actually invade Iran...well, let's put it this way: Iran is 3-4 times the size of Afghanistan, with even more difficult terrain, and has a standing army of 600,000 men, with over 300,000 in reserve. They have an air force, are proficient in the manufacture of drones, have a working intelligence network. And they've had 4 decades to dig into defensive positions. In short, it's not gonna happen.
- sysguest 6mo ago> which country started this whole mess? what has already started, is already started -- I agree on Trump being dick, but does that make iran's "making new enemies" a wise move? > NATO already told trump no, other countries won't give different answers. of course it said no BEFORE IRAN started the $2M toll (and other countries don't like trump due to tariff-for-everyone) if the current iran regime was strategically wise, iran should have fired everything it got to Israel, and make the missile interception rate down to 40%. That would have actually showed it's power. now, with even UAE's missile interception rate of 96%, iran actually showed its missiles are nuisances, not some existential threat. 600,000 men and 300,000 in reserve -- well that would have mattered a lot in medieval wars... "they have an airforce" -- well do they actually have planes? "have a working intelligence network" -- hmm... no you're way way way over-estimating iran the only strategic move for iran was selecting one specific target (israel) and focusing all its might, not becoming a rambo
- sysguest 6mo agoidk this move, along with firing missiles even to non-combatant countries, is going to fuk-up iran... I mean, even before the $2M toll, if you're kuwait/UAE/saudi/etc, what choice do you have? form a coalition against iran now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships... so what choice do all those strait-using countries have? pay $2M or more, even after US leaves? nope... they'll form a coalition against iran it's highly unfortunate that trump started the war, but iran's way of things are just making more enemies -- it'll pay with regime change within few months
- klipt 6mo ago> now.. with that $2M toll, iran just learnt it can just toll the ships... But the strait has two sides and Iran only controls one side. The UAE/Oman on the other side could equally threaten to attack Iranian ships unless Iran pays them a toll.
- sysguest 6mo agowell I guess that makes Iran really fked up... the strait-using countries are surely going to "make a lesson out of" iran exactly for that reason
- zinodaur 6mo agoI think what we should have learned from this is that it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders... the gulf states are much more exposed to this than the US is, and much less powerful. They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket, and are discovering that their payments haven't bought much.
- sysguest 6mo ago> it's extremely hard to "make a lesson out of" Iran if you depend on moving oil past their borders it's not just gulf states -- look at who are the customers of those gulf states are. the whole asia, europe, and america -- the whole world is their customer. Even if it's "extremely hard", those countries have no choice but "make a lesson out of" iran -- just like what we did with pirates why would those "customers of gulf" just leave iran? after US leaves, will iran regime suddenly become nice and stop forcing that $2M-per-voyage bill? no, and even if iran regime promises "I'll never bill those ships", how could you trust on that promise? the only way to ensure free-ship-passing would be obliterating Iran as an example, even if US backs away. > They are also not neutral - they have been paying in to the US protection racket hmm so were they "helping" US bomb iran? "being neutral" means it didn't participate on attacking iran, not whether it paid or not.
- tptacek 6mo agoSeems pretty unlikely that the Yuan is going to be the dominant world currency, given its capital controls.
- mdnahas 6mo agoEconomist here. The more likely short-term replacement is gold. Not as the reserve currency, but as the currency for denominating trade. The US has raised tariffs erraticly. Traders seek out a good that can be traded anywhere with predictable low costs and that is gold. So, demand is rising and, if it continues, trades may be denominated in gold.
- thewhitetulip 6mo agoBut Iran let the International Maritime Org that anyone who is not US/Israel or not attacking or supporting attacks on them can pass through the strait of Hormuz. Is the $ 2M still a thing?
- citrin_ru 6mo ago> The Straight of Hormuz is open to any country willing to pay $2M per voyage. Any country except the U.S. and Israel. The straight is not physically closed by Iran. It's closed by insurance companies which asking a very high war risk insurance premiums. Even if you pay $2M it unlikely will reduce the cost of insurance. That's why very few ships are choosing this option (and some of them are shadow fleet tankers which probably have no insurance).
- ahmadyan 6mo agowell, you can view it Iranian are willing to insure the vessel for $2M fee - that it will not get hit by them during the crossing ;). Once they are in the Oman sea, they can use traditional insurance.
- credit_guy 6mo agoYou can view it like that, but most people don't. At least the people involved manning those tankers don't. And why should them? It appears that the Iranian armed forces started acted quite autonomously, by design. They know that communications are not secure, so local commanders have a very high latitude in what actions they deem correct to take. If such a commander deems that asking and collecting $2 MM per vessel is a good idea, they'll do it. But if another commander thinks that sinking a passing vessel is what their standing orders are, they'll do it too, not being aware that the toll was paid. So, if you are the captain of such a vessel, what do you do? Do you complain to Iran for not holding their end of the bargain?
- yogthos 6mo agoI mean ships are going through right now, so clearly at least some people do view it like that.
- mememememememo 6mo agoPeople work on dangerous fishing trawlers because of the $. People can be found who risk their life for money.
- lokar 6mo agoThe list is longer than just the US and Israel, it includes all allies and nations supporting them, so, most of the gulf states.
- zahlman 6mo ago> The most important aspect of the "toll" is that Iran prefers payment in yuan, not dollars. > If Iran succeeds in nationalizing the Straight and is successful in enforcing the toll, it represents a very serious threat to the dominance of the U.S. Dollar as the world's reserve currency for trading energy. This theory seems to predict that CNY/USD should have gone up since Feb 27 as everyone rushes to trade and obtain yuan so they can pay the Iranians. But in fact the opposite is the case; that currency pair peaked Feb 27 after a bull run (well, only about +7%) since approximately "liberation day".
- CMay 6mo agoUSD dominance isn't going anywhere, because all of the critical metrics are still basically uncontested by any alternative. China and Russia are losing allies left and right. They're demonstrating that they support terrorism. Nobody is going to decide that their currencies are the new hot thing. China poses a huge threat, but some of their worst advantages aren't viable. We know things they have, so we tell them things we have. If you do X, we do Y. Thus some of their big advantages are nullified, unless they get reckless. Same as the nuclear issue, weapons you've invested in yet cannot even use, because they become part of new rules. Some of that has been clarified in the trade tug of war, showing each other's dependencies. Some is being shown by also showing how easy it is for Russian infrastructure to be hit, or how easy it is to put a choke hold on critical energy, or to simply capture a dictator for that matter. It isn't even just those things, it's also the cadence and timeframe. Venezuela, Cuba, Iran and Russia all under severe pressure within just a few months at the start of 2026. At most we've maybe seen some limited sabotage of infrastructure inside the US and perhaps aboard a carrier, some sharing of targeting information, etc. If Russia and China are leveraging any of their real potential for pressure, it sure is hard to tell.
- mememememememo 6mo agoWhat about... Euro. Gold. Bitcoin. Currency baskets.
- CMay 6mo agoI mean, Gold is an asset. Bitcoin is an asset. Those aren't currencies, even if people like to think of them that way. As far as the Euro, Europe is not America. The European Union is also not the United States. America has geographic advantages that Europe lacks. The US has structural stability advantages that the EU lacks. People sometimes argue things like, the EU is more of a framework or general agreement, while the US is an actual country. The amount of USD in circulation dwarfs all other currencies and makes it more cushioned against shocks. It's much more liquid than gold or bitcoin. If you need to get actual things done in the real world and you need to get them done quickly, USD is the currency you want to generally have. It's also the least likely to simply poof or disappear. China is the only real threat the US has faced since World War 2 and we're handling it pre-emptively. You could argue we were pre-empting the CCP even before World War 2, since we were supporting the anti-communist forces inside China before Japan attacked it and unified them against it. The outcome of a lot of wars comes down to physics. The physics are on the side of the US. USD isn't going anywhere. Iranian and Venezuelan oil will be traded in USD now as well.
- eonwe 6mo agoIran letting ships through for too small price means that oil price will fall and their only leverage over USA goes away.
- names_are_hard 6mo agoBut it's still described as a $2M toll, not a 13.81M CNY toll. So I guess we're not there yet.