Trump Is Bombing Iran Again, Hormuz Toll Fantasies — EV Revolution Back On?
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So, top of Google News today is that Donald Trump and crew are bombing Iran again. Then there’s the whole idea of the US controlling the Strait of Hormuz and charging a 20% toll. There’s a lot to unpack, including what this means for the electric vehicle market.
First of all, I will just raise the question again: why did the US need to start bombing Iran in the first place? Funny enough, while Google AI wants to give me an answer for pretty much everything these days, even using a few different searches, it didn’t give me an answer. That struck me as funny/odd. The top result Google is giving me is actually from the American Jewish Committee (AJC), an atypical result for such a big-news matter. Funny. Well, anyway, I wrote about this in April and not much has changed since then. The excuses for why we are doing it are highly suspect, just as “weapons of mass destruction” were, and there are certainly some ulterior motives with Trump that could be a big part of the motivation. The US military did assassinate the head of the Iranian state, though, so there are various options on the table for the US to end it there, but the assassination and bombing surely have made Iranians hate the US more than ever and desire retaliation. So, where does this end? How would Americans respond if Iran assassinated Trump and bombed the country repeatedly?
Supposedly, the US was going to make a deal with Iran that was objectively much, much worse than the deal made under Obama. And in June, last month, the US Senate voted to end the war with Iran. They made a peace agreement, but then bombing resumed back and forth. So, Trump has given Congress a letter stating that we are at war with Iran again (a new war), which gives him another 60 days before such war has to be approved by Congress or ended (theoretically). The letter was dated July 10 and said that bombing that began on July 7 were part of “military action consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States’ interests both at home and abroad.” Ah, yes, thank goodness we are bombing people in the Middle East again. /s
A new element to this is Trump is claiming the US will become “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT” and will kindly let ships pass through at a meager 20% toll on the cargo. Where did the 20% figure come from? Considering that 20% of the world’s oil famously passes through the Strait of Hormuz, one has to wonder if that’s how Trump came up with the number. Anyway, one of the problems with this plan is that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz. The AP has a good piece on “Why it’s so difficult for the US to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz.” It starts off as follows:
“President Donald Trump has been trying to force Iran to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz for months, turning to everything from airstrikes and naval blockades to negotiations and threats to destroy a “whole civilization.”
“But restoring oil tanker traffic in the vital Middle East shipping corridor to prewar flows likely will require a much bigger armada of U.S. warships if not tens of thousands of American troops on Iranian soil, experts say. Despite on-and-off fighting, Iran can still target vessels in the narrow Persian Gulf waterway with drones and missiles that have been hidden in a country a third of the size of the continental United States.
“‘Iran has been preparing for this type of asymmetric conflict for decades now,’ said Jason H. Campbell, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and a former Pentagon official. ‘I think they’re starting to demonstrate why no other U.S. president since Reagan has elected to engage at this level of conflict with Iran, because they have that ability to completely disrupt the Strait of Hormuz.'”
Hmm, yeah, that sounds complicated to get around.
Iran’s perspective is that “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER.”
You can read more about the toll dispute between Trump, Iran, and others here and here. There are also broader stories about the revived war here, here, and here. Overall, though, the US becoming a “guardian” of the Strait of Hormuz altruistically while also imposing an industry-breaking 20% toll is a fantasy that one would think came out of a senile old man’s mind in the middle of the night. But the real-world consequence is: no one knows what’s going to happen over there now, and cargo traffic is drying up again. Reportedly, just 22 ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz last week, an 85% drop compared to pre-war levels.
The average price of gas this year reached a peak of $4.56 per gallon on May 21, just about 50 cents below the country’s all-time peak, $5.016, which was reached (ironically) on Donald Trump’s birthday, June 14, 2022, as the world climbed out of the COVID-19 pandemic. The average price of gas has since dropped back down to $3.86/gallon. However, where are we headed now? A “new war” has broken out, many backup oil supplies have been drained quite a bit, and we’re now talking about 20% tolls on cargo, including 20% of the world’s oil. Anyone who was counting on a quick and simple resolution to the bozo-brained war in Iran is probably starting to get quite concerned about the situation. (One would think.) If you can count on Trump for two things, they are: making a good situation bad, and making a bad situation worse. Also see: Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever.
But, maybe some good news! Frankly, people around the world would be smart to transition to electric vehicles as soon as possible. They drive better, they are more convenient to charge (if you have home, workplace, or even grocery store charging options), they don’t pollute the air you and your kids breathe, they don’t cook the planet by emitting greenhouse gases, and they don’t need to be fueled by gasoline/oil. Many people paid more attention to this latter point when the war on Iran got rolling and switched to electric cars. It stimulated EV purchases around the globe, from the US to Europe to China to Australia to South Africa to Colombia to Mexico. Perhaps people thought with gasoline prices dropping and talks of peace that this whole thing was about to be over. With a “new war” just beginning and gas prices surely starting to rise again, one would think that a new wave of EV purchases is about to begin. In fact, showing how long and extended this conflict is getting, and the talk of 20% tolls, perhaps the next wave of EV purchases will be even bigger than the previous one.
What do you think?
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