this post was submitted on 12 Apr 2026
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"Effective immediately, the ​United States Navy, the Finest in ​the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING ‌any ⁠and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz," said Trump

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[–] radix@lemmy.world 200 points 4 days ago (1 children)

In about two days, there will be reports of massive volume of shorts on oil company stocks that occurred in the minutes before the announcement, then another day after that, nobody will talk about it again.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 28 points 4 days ago

This is good for oil stocks/oil prices going much higher... until TACO.

[–] NONE_dc@lemmy.world 130 points 4 days ago (1 children)

From mediocre incompetents to outright villains.

Are they also going to block the ships that Iran and Japan agreed could pass through, for example? Are they really going to screw over a strategic ally like Japan just for...? You know what? Yeah, they definitely would.

[–] brunox@feddit.cl 28 points 4 days ago (7 children)

maybe Japan shouldn't have surprise attacked them on december 1941.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 29 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Japan only attacked the USA in 1941 because of an oil embargo by the USA

[–] LincolnsDogFido@lemmy.zip 17 points 4 days ago

I mean, yeah, but also they were allied with Nazi Germany and fascist Italy at the time. And pursuing their own expansionist ambitions in the Eastern hemisphere.

[–] shani66@ani.social 15 points 4 days ago (5 children)

So japan could do the funniest thing rn

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[–] Denvil@lemmy.ml 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

They didn't even tell us they were going to

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[–] blattrules@lemmy.world 105 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So now instead of zero blockades like we had two months ago, we have two blockades?

[–] krisevol@lemmy.zip 53 points 4 days ago

Art of the deal

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 10 points 4 days ago

2 is better than 0 as 0 is for losers. /s

[–] Localhorst86@feddit.org 119 points 4 days ago (1 children)

"You're not blocking the strait of Hormuz, I am. I dont even want your strait, anyways"

[–] Atelopus-zeteki@fedia.io 62 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's literally high school bully level of pettiness and stupidity. And because it's on a global scale, everyone suffers. smh.

[–] Zahille7@lemmy.world 45 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (4 children)

I'm a little surprised everyone is mostly agreeing that he's doing this because he's stupid. I mean yes, he's a fucking idiot, but someone told him to start a blockade. And as we all know from the first one a week ago, it's only gonna jack up prices on literally everything even more than they are right now.

It's all a plan by the billionaire class that openly runs our country now to keep inflating prices so consumers don't have anything.

Edit: like c/BamboodPanda said, "Oil determines the price of shipping. Shipping determines the price of everything. They want to jack up everything."

[–] CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Its mostly to jack up oil.

Trump is owned by Rosneft and OPEC

[–] Bamboodpanda@lemmy.world 12 points 4 days ago

Oil determines the price of shipping. Shipping determines the price of everything. They want to jack up everything.

They loved the prices they found gouge after the pandemic and want to see how far they can push society.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 14 points 4 days ago (2 children)

100% this. He didn't come up with a solution to "open the strait!" as "don't use the strait!" So it's still closed? Because of feels? OK, but it being closed because you said so means it's still fucking closed.

Who benefits from this long term? Other than just "people who just bought oil at $98 on Monday"?

[–] ShaggySnacks@lemmy.myserv.one 4 points 4 days ago

My theory is Lumpty Trumpty and the other looters are going to let the price of oil go up before announcing some sort of deal or removal of the blockade. Oil prices start to come down.

Anyone in on the looting gets to rake in the short bets on oil. It's the opposite of a pump and dump scheme.

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[–] the_mighty_kracken@lemmy.world 5 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Brilliant plan to reduce their own income.

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[–] Lanske@lemmy.world 56 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I hate these Maga Yanks so much.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

American here. As do I.

[–] Sgarcnl@lemmy.world 42 points 4 days ago

He’s playing the stock market again

[–] BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 22 points 4 days ago

Oh, sure, this will bring down gas prices.

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 34 points 4 days ago

Lol so let me get this straight. We went from a completely open and free strait, to a closed one, to one ran and toll, to a double blocked strait. We are up 200% blockage. Art of the deal.

Also Trump is going to starve out all of the middle east and Asia? He'll be tacoing here soon. Otherwise WW3 is guaranteed because China and Russia are preparing to have their forces escort their materials through because Iran doesn't have beef with them.

[–] limonfiesta@lemmy.world 37 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Can't wait for the USN to start blowing up Chinese tankers and cargo ships.

Or seizing SK and Japanese vessels for that matter.

Are we going to prevent our most Asian important allies from receiving energy supplies that could prevent, or at least significantly delay, their complete economic collapse?

[–] krisevol@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Your already witnessing an economic collapse. The US paid more in interest than they made in tax revenue.

This was is the last struggle of a dying world reserve currency. Happens everytime in history. The next step is civil war and spreading the "wealth". Then the final step is getting used to the lower quality of life that we can afford after we raises the "wealth" wasn't real because most people don't understand what wealth is.

The average US household is going to be generational because the spending power of the dollar will be shit compared to the new world reserve currency. The YUAN.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 6 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I keep seeing posts like this and they make a lot of sense. Do you have any recommendations on where someone might read up on this or should I just start googling stuff like "what happens when countries collapse?" "German economy after WW1" "currency collapse of ancient Rome" etc etc

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Not op, and as far from an economist as possible. But I think there has never been a situation like this, ever, in the entire human race.

I have no clue what will happen but I deeply feel most will have wrong predictions

[–] sobchak@programming.dev 5 points 4 days ago

Many of the super wealthy obviously want to create company towns again (I think Musk is already in the process). Child labor laws are being rolled back. Wouldn't be surprised if stuff like debtor prisons come back. We are in the process of building concentration (and likely labor) camps for the homeless. We have and are building concentration camps for the undocumented. People are openly talking about denaturalization. I think it's clear where the "elite" want to see things go. Open question is how far we collectively will let them.

[–] AdolfSchmitler@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I mean, yes and no. Rome didn't have military bases around the world when it collapsed and Germany didn't have reserve currency status. But their currency DID become worthless. Stories like people burning money cuz it was cheaper than buying firewood.

I know that it won't be "exactly the same" but maybe we could glean some valuable insight. Like physical items held value way better than currency. What did people do? Did families all return home and live with their parents/siblings since costs were too high alone?

Having an idea of where things might go or what could happen just makes me feel better about it I guess? Like I know if the dollar collapses no amount of prep will really make it better and society as we know it in the U.S. will not exist for a bit.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The global economy is new, so much has changed

4 generations ago most of the food that people ate grew within 20 miles, now a good chuck of my food is grown on four continents in dozens of countries.

This and every single thing in my house and car has supply lines stretching over a million miles when the travel of every single item, and their materials are added up. Literally, tens of millions of people helped make my items

Banking is literally hundreds or thousands of times more complex than in my grandfather’s time.

And my entire career is based on technology and infrastructure I read only hints about in science fiction books as a kid.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

Back in the early XX century - when Germany had hyperinflation and America had the Great Depression - most people still lived in the countryside.

You can weather a lot of shit if you can grow your own food.

Nowadays, at least in the West, most people live in cities and food is something they HAVE to buy and in order to be able to buy food they HAVE to have jobs - most people can't simple shrink their lives down to a point were they're pretty much independent of the rest of society, farming their little plot of land and raising some chickens using traditional techniques to just keep on going.

If shit properly hits the fan, I suspect things are going to be way more desperate.

[–] fake_meows@sopuli.xyz 4 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

If shit properly hits the fan, I suspect things are going to be way more desperate.

To be a little more precise, people have studied this question carefully at a planetary scale.

The total agricultural production possible in the absense of artificial inputs like fertilizers, pesticides, diesel tractors, cold storage and refrigerated supply chains etc is around no more than 3billion people running off solar inputs and natures nutrient cycles and the amount of land and water available.

Pretty shocking number if you don't have the context, but here is a place to get started on the information this is based on.

So for example, in the green revolution, land and agriculture technology increased a modest amount, but artificial fossil inputs into the existing technology system increased 90-fold. Most of the gains in food production are because it's now based on fossil energy and nutrients rather than natural sources.

Currently, today ~40% of all the human food supply molecules come from fossil fuels and are incorporated into the plants and animals we eat.

So it's not "just" a land management issue, or urbanization. Humanity is literally on artificial life support. There is no simple, survivable way out of this commitment. Fundamentally this is far, far from penciling out any other way we know how to survive. Humanity population passed some threshold for change around 3-4 generations ago.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 2 points 3 days ago

I am worried about food in the countryside too, if anything breaks down too far. Most rural people in the USA have lost the skills to grow their own food. And most farms in the USA ( that are not owned by companies) are now owned by families that inherited them, and they don’t have as much knowledge as their grandparents, and would have difficulties .

So, yea, food insecurity if many parts of those very convoluted supply chains have trouble

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[–] fake_meows@sopuli.xyz 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

https://lemmy.zip/c/collapse

In the collapse community people have been aware of a "thermodynamic" collapse of energy supplies for quite a while.

So for example, to mainstream people and the investors, there is something called 'oil' which seems like a commodity item.

In the collapse community, worldwide supplies of diesel and heavy oil energy products (shipping, trucking, agriculture, mining and gasoline refining among many other applications) has been in a 10-year long period of decline with major implications for our global civilization.

(Diesel / heavy crude comes from several places globally. The USA has run out but Venezuela and Iran are two heavy hitters for the molecules needed.)

The blockade on the strait is only having any impact because it's a zero sum game now that nobody can raise production any higher. Like you don't see Norway and Canada suddenly ramping up and filling demand, right?

I consider this the most parsimonious and cogent world view.

In a short summary: the blockade is an artificial shortage that is designed to collapse and bankrupt the most dependent and vulnerable nations in the global periphery, which is a "triage" that preserves oil supplies for the wealthy nations in the long run. Like this triggers collapse, and then as a second order effect global demand will fall for energy which is in an irreversible depletion event. This is the only way the most developed nations extend their existence through the crash.

This is all an open secret, you can dig into technical papers and agency reports and academic publications, everything will say the same thing. However, this is not really a "mainstream" consciousness.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 15 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Lame-ass copycats.

[–] green_red_black@slrpnk.net 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!

(Remember Iran says they have the strait closed as well.)

[–] webp@mander.xyz 10 points 4 days ago

When a mother blockade and a father blockade love each other very much...

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 18 points 4 days ago

Snip snap snip snap

[–] altphoto@lemmy.today 12 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So let me get this straight... Of Hormuz.

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[–] fox2263@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago (3 children)
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[–] taiyang@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

He saw then charging a toll and wanted to also charge a toll.

[–] humanspiral@lemmy.ca 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I'd hope global reaction will be anger against US. If Israel had paused its genocide of Lebanon, 20 ships/day would have flowed out of SoH. Now it will be 0. Trump just threated NATO and other allied flag ships.

Way out is for world to negotiate with Iran to pay equivalent revenue to tolls in order to have SoH fully open. World paying instead of US/Israel, if world is too timid to show anger to US.

[–] verdi@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 6 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

I'd like to see the yanks threaten Spanish or other Nato ally ships, lol, that's an automatic article 5. Furthermore, TACO doesn't have the balls or the means to block Chinese chips.

My dream now is some dumbass yank soldier fucks up and starts a war between China and the US. It would be beautiful to see the superiority complex of the yanks faced with the realities of a more advanced twice as large country.

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[–] phoenixz@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

So now they went from the bad guy to the worse guy in this conflict. Because of course

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