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Hormuz closure could trigger 'agrifood shock', price crisis within a year

102 points by mooreds 6mo ago

rasHfd 6mo ago
[flagged]
- iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
  << Trump has said so explicitly many times. Well, based merely on the past 3 months, I am not certain he is a useful way to measure truth or evaluate anything as fact. That said, in somewhat broad strokes, I don't disagree with the gist of your post.
- marcosdumay 6mo ago
  > The IRGC wants the blockade for self-preservation No. The preservation was all done by the US attacking them. Everything on their part is just well motivated defense.
  - hersko 6mo ago
    [flagged]
    - Tyrubias 6mo ago
      It is most definitely a defense if you use the same logic the US does. If the US can seize oil tankers going to and from Cuba and Venezuela and attack fishing boats in the name of national security, then Iran can definitely blockade the Strait of Hormuz in the name of defense.
      - hersko 6mo ago
        You would not call the the US enforcing a blockade as a defensive tactic. It is offensive, as is what Iran is doing. Defensive would mean defending ships navigating the strait.
        Daishiman 6mo ago
        Offensive? Who began the offensive against Iran?
        cogman10 6mo ago
        Bullets shot from guns can be defensive and offensive depending on who's pulling the trigger and why. The straight is exactly the same. Iran is blocking the straight to pressure the world to pressure the US and Israel to stop their aggression. It's completely logical, reasonable, and is really a defense strategy. The US blockading the straight is an offensive move to try and force Iran to... actually it's completely unclear what the US wants Iran to do. We just attacked them because of some imaginary threat cooked up by Israel.
- PenguinCoder 6mo ago
  > None of these autocratic countries care about their own populations. Trump has said so explicitly many times. Going to need a better source than a habitual liar.
  - throw-the-towel 6mo ago
    Correction: Trump probably isn't even a liar, but a bullshitter. A liar, at the very least, understands whatever he's saying is not true; a bullshitter doesn't care at all about the relationship between his words and the truth, he just makes noise.
  - amalcon 6mo ago
    In legal terms, one would call this a "statement against interest". If a politician says he does not care one bit about the welfare his constituents, it is reasonable for those constituents to take him at his word no matter how untrustworthy he is. It only hurts him if we believe it. Iranian negotiators probably shouldn't believe him, because it's not against interest in that context. There probably just aren't any on Hacker News.
- asfqrt 6mo ago
  How are you going to discuss geopolitics here if attempts at explaining the stalling of the U.S. and Russia to defuse the conflict are censored. Instead, the "Israel controls the world" narrative, repeated incidentally by many Western and pro-Russian outlets on Twitter and YouTube is the top comment. So probably this censored comment is correct but outside the Overton Window.
- rainworld 6mo ago
  You, as many do, forgot to mention the root cause: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-iran-war-request-israel/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-iran-war-request-israel... > The meek recent Senate protest means nothing. If the elites didn't want the war, the House and the Senate would have 2/3rd majorities to stop it. Yesterday’s AIPAC-driven ouster of Rep. Thomas Massie should tell you why no one is trying to stop this and who these “elites” you speak of answer to. > The IRGC wants the blockade for self-preservation among its own population to show it is resisting "The West". They are not showing off. They are actively and successfully resisting “The West”. Which could only sustain 5 weeks of active hostilities, got nowhere, hurt its position in the ME severely, but still cannot concede. Which brings us back to the root cause.
  - hersko 6mo ago
    > AIPAC-driven ouster Yeah, i definitely had nothing to do with him accusing his party of protecting pedophiles and repeatedly voting with the left to block Trumps agenda. It must have been the jews.
    - rainworld 6mo ago
      https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/17/massie-aipac-record-spending-israel-maga-trump-primary-00925375 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/17/massie-aipac-record... It literally was. And wait till you find out you find out who Epstein et al. were working for.
      - hersko 6mo ago
        It literally wasn't. It was an ouster pushed by Trump. From your own article: "Prominent pro-Israel GOP donors have funneled millions more into a super PAC stood up by President Donald Trump’s political operation" > And wait till you find out you find out who Epstein et al. were working for. Oooh, please tell me. I'm all ears.
        rainworld 6mo ago
deleted 6mo ago
[deleted]
martythemaniak 6mo ago
Tough problem! Perhaps the US commentariat should listen to Thomas Friedman's wisdom and start loudly hectoring the rest of the world to step up and fix this problem.
- bdcravens 6mo ago
  Or we could just accept defeat and leave.
  - nielsbot 6mo ago
    But then we might look weak! (Like Trump does every time he slouches over in his chair next to Xi Jin-Ping)
jalapenoj 6mo ago
It’s a sacrifice israel is willing to make.
- asfqrt 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - moab 6mo ago
    I love it when people push back like this without suggesting the real reason. Can't think one can you? That too from a new sock puppet.
  - cogman10 6mo ago
    Not really an excuse when we had house republicans at the start of the war saying we went to war for Israel [1]. It's only become wrong to suggest this as politicians and pundits have woken up to the fact that waging war on behalf of Israel isn't a popular thing to do. [1] https://apnews.com/article/congress-war-powers-trump-iran-68d78b2215cc6c021937859ce852e1f2 https://apnews.com/article/congress-war-powers-trump-iran-68...
    - 234k-awsh 6mo ago
      That is literally one of the blame game strategies outlined in this Brookings 2009 paper: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran... Israel is happy to take the blame, because of course it does want the war. But it is a stretch that the whole "Path to Persia", which included Iraq, Libya and Syria was only done at the behest of Israel. I'm not an Israel shill, the behavior in Gaza is abhorrent.
      - cogman10 6mo ago
        Sorry, I have a hard time believing you aren't an Israel shill, especially since you are using a common tactic I've noticed of Israel defenders, working to hide any of your past opinions through new accounts or hidden comments. It's happening a lot on reddit as well. You'll find a bunch of pro-israel accounts which are private. Who knows, you may be legit, but forgive me for not trusting you and these other new accounts that always seem to float up when Israel is discussed. Especially since it's well known that Israel is spending nearly a billion dollars on online propaganda [1] [1] https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/israel-plans-to-spend-740-million-on-propaganda-in-2026/ https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/israel-plans-to-spend-...
hersko 6mo ago
Here are two articles Reuters wrote about how the war in Ukraine was going to do something similar in 2022[1][2]. Make of this what you will. [1] https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/FOOD/zjvqkgomjvx/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/FOOD/zjvqkgo... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-war-ukraine-blame-worsening-global-food-insecurity-yellen-2022-04-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-war-ukraine-bla...
- gambiting 6mo ago
  And like other articles pointed out, wealthy western countries will always just outbid poorer countries for their food. No one in Germany, Poland or the UK was going to go hungry without the grain or fertilizer from Ukraine - but it does mean we have a much tighter supply than before, and poorer countries got quite literally priced out. Combined with the reduction of foreign aid(not just by US) there is a humanitarian crisis going on in a lot of places as a direct consequence of this. This is "just" going to make the existing problems worse.
  - TitaRusell 6mo ago
    Wait a minute! Dutch people were forbidden from buying more than 2 bottles of sunflower oil for a few months! It was my generation's 1945 winter of starvation.
- delecti 6mo ago
  Also worth noting that a deal was worked out a few months later, before things could get bad. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112880942/ukraine-grain-exports-deal https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112880942/ukraine-grain-expo...
SaucyWrong 6mo ago
The knock-on effects of a prolonged Hormuz closure will coincide nicely with those of a super El Niño, if one develops as predicted this year.
sharts 6mo ago
Meh they said that about Ukraine as well.

102 points by mooreds 6mo ago

rasHfd 6mo ago

[flagged]

iugtmkbdfil834 6mo ago
<< Trump has said so explicitly many times. Well, based merely on the past 3 months, I am not certain he is a useful way to measure truth or evaluate anything as fact. That said, in somewhat broad strokes, I don't disagree with the gist of your post.
marcosdumay 6mo ago
> The IRGC wants the blockade for self-preservation No. The preservation was all done by the US attacking them. Everything on their part is just well motivated defense.
- hersko 6mo ago
  [flagged]
  - Tyrubias 6mo ago
    It is most definitely a defense if you use the same logic the US does. If the US can seize oil tankers going to and from Cuba and Venezuela and attack fishing boats in the name of national security, then Iran can definitely blockade the Strait of Hormuz in the name of defense.
    - hersko 6mo ago
      You would not call the the US enforcing a blockade as a defensive tactic. It is offensive, as is what Iran is doing. Defensive would mean defending ships navigating the strait.
      - Daishiman 6mo ago
        Offensive? Who began the offensive against Iran?
      - cogman10 6mo ago
        Bullets shot from guns can be defensive and offensive depending on who's pulling the trigger and why. The straight is exactly the same. Iran is blocking the straight to pressure the world to pressure the US and Israel to stop their aggression. It's completely logical, reasonable, and is really a defense strategy. The US blockading the straight is an offensive move to try and force Iran to... actually it's completely unclear what the US wants Iran to do. We just attacked them because of some imaginary threat cooked up by Israel.
PenguinCoder 6mo ago
> None of these autocratic countries care about their own populations. Trump has said so explicitly many times. Going to need a better source than a habitual liar.
- throw-the-towel 6mo ago
  Correction: Trump probably isn't even a liar, but a bullshitter. A liar, at the very least, understands whatever he's saying is not true; a bullshitter doesn't care at all about the relationship between his words and the truth, he just makes noise.
- amalcon 6mo ago
  In legal terms, one would call this a "statement against interest". If a politician says he does not care one bit about the welfare his constituents, it is reasonable for those constituents to take him at his word no matter how untrustworthy he is. It only hurts him if we believe it. Iranian negotiators probably shouldn't believe him, because it's not against interest in that context. There probably just aren't any on Hacker News.
asfqrt 6mo ago
How are you going to discuss geopolitics here if attempts at explaining the stalling of the U.S. and Russia to defuse the conflict are censored. Instead, the "Israel controls the world" narrative, repeated incidentally by many Western and pro-Russian outlets on Twitter and YouTube is the top comment. So probably this censored comment is correct but outside the Overton Window.
rainworld 6mo ago
You, as many do, forgot to mention the root cause: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-iran-war-request-israel/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/us-iran-war-request-israel... > The meek recent Senate protest means nothing. If the elites didn't want the war, the House and the Senate would have 2/3rd majorities to stop it. Yesterday’s AIPAC-driven ouster of Rep. Thomas Massie should tell you why no one is trying to stop this and who these “elites” you speak of answer to. > The IRGC wants the blockade for self-preservation among its own population to show it is resisting "The West". They are not showing off. They are actively and successfully resisting “The West”. Which could only sustain 5 weeks of active hostilities, got nowhere, hurt its position in the ME severely, but still cannot concede. Which brings us back to the root cause.
- hersko 6mo ago
  > AIPAC-driven ouster Yeah, i definitely had nothing to do with him accusing his party of protecting pedophiles and repeatedly voting with the left to block Trumps agenda. It must have been the jews.
  - rainworld 6mo ago
    https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/17/massie-aipac-record-spending-israel-maga-trump-primary-00925375 https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/17/massie-aipac-record... It literally was. And wait till you find out you find out who Epstein et al. were working for.
    - hersko 6mo ago
      It literally wasn't. It was an ouster pushed by Trump. From your own article: "Prominent pro-Israel GOP donors have funneled millions more into a super PAC stood up by President Donald Trump’s political operation" > And wait till you find out you find out who Epstein et al. were working for. Oooh, please tell me. I'm all ears.
      - rainworld 6mo ago

deleted 6mo ago

[deleted]

martythemaniak 6mo ago

Tough problem! Perhaps the US commentariat should listen to Thomas Friedman's wisdom and start loudly hectoring the rest of the world to step up and fix this problem.

bdcravens 6mo ago
Or we could just accept defeat and leave.
- nielsbot 6mo ago
  But then we might look weak! (Like Trump does every time he slouches over in his chair next to Xi Jin-Ping)

jalapenoj 6mo ago

It’s a sacrifice israel is willing to make.

asfqrt 6mo ago
[flagged]
- moab 6mo ago
  I love it when people push back like this without suggesting the real reason. Can't think one can you? That too from a new sock puppet.
- cogman10 6mo ago
  Not really an excuse when we had house republicans at the start of the war saying we went to war for Israel [1]. It's only become wrong to suggest this as politicians and pundits have woken up to the fact that waging war on behalf of Israel isn't a popular thing to do. [1] https://apnews.com/article/congress-war-powers-trump-iran-68d78b2215cc6c021937859ce852e1f2 https://apnews.com/article/congress-war-powers-trump-iran-68...
  - 234k-awsh 6mo ago
    That is literally one of the blame game strategies outlined in this Brookings 2009 paper: https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran_strategy.pdf https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/06_iran... Israel is happy to take the blame, because of course it does want the war. But it is a stretch that the whole "Path to Persia", which included Iraq, Libya and Syria was only done at the behest of Israel. I'm not an Israel shill, the behavior in Gaza is abhorrent.
    - cogman10 6mo ago
      Sorry, I have a hard time believing you aren't an Israel shill, especially since you are using a common tactic I've noticed of Israel defenders, working to hide any of your past opinions through new accounts or hidden comments. It's happening a lot on reddit as well. You'll find a bunch of pro-israel accounts which are private. Who knows, you may be legit, but forgive me for not trusting you and these other new accounts that always seem to float up when Israel is discussed. Especially since it's well known that Israel is spending nearly a billion dollars on online propaganda [1] [1] https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/israel-plans-to-spend-740-million-on-propaganda-in-2026/ https://libertarianinstitute.org/news/israel-plans-to-spend-...

hersko 6mo ago

Here are two articles Reuters wrote about how the war in Ukraine was going to do something similar in 2022[1][2]. Make of this what you will. [1] https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/FOOD/zjvqkgomjvx/ https://www.reuters.com/graphics/UKRAINE-CRISIS/FOOD/zjvqkgo... [2] https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-war-ukraine-blame-worsening-global-food-insecurity-yellen-2022-04-19/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russias-war-ukraine-bla...

gambiting 6mo ago
And like other articles pointed out, wealthy western countries will always just outbid poorer countries for their food. No one in Germany, Poland or the UK was going to go hungry without the grain or fertilizer from Ukraine - but it does mean we have a much tighter supply than before, and poorer countries got quite literally priced out. Combined with the reduction of foreign aid(not just by US) there is a humanitarian crisis going on in a lot of places as a direct consequence of this. This is "just" going to make the existing problems worse.
- TitaRusell 6mo ago
  Wait a minute! Dutch people were forbidden from buying more than 2 bottles of sunflower oil for a few months! It was my generation's 1945 winter of starvation.
delecti 6mo ago
Also worth noting that a deal was worked out a few months later, before things could get bad. https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112880942/ukraine-grain-exports-deal https://www.npr.org/2022/07/22/1112880942/ukraine-grain-expo...

SaucyWrong 6mo ago

The knock-on effects of a prolonged Hormuz closure will coincide nicely with those of a super El Niño, if one develops as predicted this year.

sharts 6mo ago

Meh they said that about Ukraine as well.