Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gets it. When asked about the Strait of Hormuz, Bessent notes that yes, things will likely never return to the way they were before; however, there is a distinction that must be applied.
Even if Iran completely acquiesced to all of the most stringent terms and conditions requested by President Trump, they will never again recapture the position they held with the Strait of Hormuz as a chokepoint.
Capital markets respond to risk in the medium and long term; risks are always mitigated. With the Strait now identified as a strategic risk, the emphasis will be on forever neutralizing that risk and avoiding the issue in the future. As a consequence, Iran’s strongest point of leverage is disappearing now and will continue to disappear. WATCH (prompted):
As further explained by James Thorne on X: “By repeatedly signaling its willingness to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, Tehran hasn’t strengthened its hand, it has accelerated the market’s exit. Capital does not tolerate chokepoints; it routes around them.
Saudi Arabia is expanding its East-West pipeline. The UAE has already built out Fujairah as a bypass. Iraq is revisiting overland export corridors. Every marginal dollar now flows toward redundancy, not reliance. What was once a geopolitical lever is being engineered into irrelevance. Bessent gets it: markets don’t absorb coercion; they arbitrage it away.
Energy markets are not static, and they are not sentimental. The shale revolution already diluted OPEC’s grip. LNG has globalized gas. Now infrastructure is doing the same to maritime risk. Once these pipelines are built, they don’t get unbuilt. Volume shifts become permanent. Pricing power follows.
Tehran’s miscalculation is classic: overplay a scarce asset, and the world invests to make it abundant. The more Iran rattles Hormuz, the faster it erodes the very leverage it seeks to exploit.
In the end, this is not deterrence. Its substitution and substitution, once funded, is irreversible. Iran is underwriting its own marginalization.“
A 40-year generational problem is being resolved forever!
Wisdom for the ages.
The Persians should have either rediscovered their ancient link to Zoroastrianism or converted to Christianity. The Islamic heresy is not helping them and won’t be helping them move forward.
Christianity is presently the fastest growing religion in Iran.
does this effect chinas future at all? ( any impact?)
The CCP learned a similar lesson with the Wolf Warrior and the Rare Earths. The manufacturing moved and is moving and the rare earths will be sourced elsewhere. The CCP wanted to be the manufacturer for the world but the CCP failed to learn that the customer is always right.
All of the Rare Earths are in the Western US.
A company called Molycorp in the 2010’s and now calle MP Minerals, has a mine on the California-Nevada Border that has all of the magnet metals available. It even has a processing Plant on sight for refining the ores into the metal hydrates. I worked a one year contract in 2013-2014 doing the preliminary chemical process engineering to restart this plant after a long shut down. This is the plant that Trump took partial government ownership of last year, when he was working these deals to invest in supply chain on this side of the Pacific.
The problem is it is on the California side of the border. When you go to this mine you stay in Lost wages but you drive to it in California where it is beset by the California Air Resources Board.
Needless to say the CARB will NEVER allow this mine to operate let alone the processing plant.
If the EPA under Zelden can exert control over this site and a few others like it in the USA in the name of national security many of our problems in the Rare Earth area would dissapear.
I remember this; the Panamint Range, really great potential and am hoping the recent Administration’s focus on mining will ease the stranglehold the California permitting agencies have instigated. I think that can happen with the declaration of these deposits as critical minerals just might be how the federal permitting can take the lead.
In reading the Federal Register over the past year have noticed a lot of the regulations put in place during the FJB Administration have been opened for new comment periods so think this is the avenue Zelding is taking – not enacting and/or reviewing past final decisions to make room for new comments to put in regulations that end the roadblocks.
“The problem is it is on the California side of the border.”
Can MP Minerals do mining and/or refining only on the Nevada side of the border?
The rare earth at MP was tagged as a National Security concern by Trump already so CA stopping production is not happening. And anyone that was paying attention to Trump and the National Security fund saw this coming.$$$.
every portion of the infrastructure in that region remains in range of iran’s projection, whether it is on a boat or not, doesnt it?
There are no free lunches.
“Another Hormuz? What to Know About the Houthi Threat to the Red Sea”
https://www.cfr.org/articles/another-hormuz-the-red-seas-threat-to-the-global-economy
“Saudi Arabia braces for attacks on ports and airports by Iraqi militias working with Iran-backed Houthis”
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/06/middleeast/saudi-houthi-iran-iraq-attack-latam-intl
Saudi Arabia is bracing for a “multiple coordinated attacks” by Iraqi militias factions and Iran-backed Houthis, a Saudi official told CNN, as the broader Middle East conflict threatens to widen.
The official cited “multiple intelligence reports” from Saudi Arabia, the US and regional countries indicating some Iraqi militia members, “in coordination with the Houthis” are planning to attack the Gulf nation “in the very near future” under the guidance of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The reports of impending attacks come a day after the Houthis claimed responsibility for an attack on a Saudi oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, a key shipping route. In the past few weeks, Saudi Arabia has come under missile attacks from the Houthis in Yemen and drone attacks from Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
Much of the pipelines are being built underground.
Everything on this earth is susceptible to bad actors.
As Thomas Sowell says there are no solutions to problems, only trade offs.
The pipelines aren’t the problem… it’s the ports and the tankers that are at risk…
well but the ports and tankers are what bessent is saying will not be needed long term, if everyone is going to skip hormuz.
i think thats a very smart move for the world to start routing around it. but it will take a lot of years.
You need the ports and tankers to get the oil from the pipelines to Europe, Asia, etc… at least with Saudi Arabia, where the pipeline dumps off at Yanbu on the Red Sea… or UAE’s Fujairah, which is on the Gulf of Oman.
Related… any guesses on whose drone took out the U.S.-owned gas storage tank in Egypt a week ago?
“Egypt confirms drone caused fire on two gas vessels at Damietta”
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/drone-hits-gas-storage-tanker-egypts-mediterranean-port-2026-07-29/
Nobody claims responsibility, and it’s a “big mystery”… definitely a drone, though… my money’s on False Flag, and take your pick on the perpetrator…
We could just carpet bomb Tehran one night and the Iranian reign of terror forever!
What makes you think that any of the important people are there?
A valid concern, but remember that military equipment costs money, and Iran will be much poorer without the Hormuz tolls. In addition, the nations supplying the product will have reason to take retaliation if their revenue is disrupted.
I am very impressed with the knowledge and wisdom that Scott Bessent has shown on several occassions.
Not really a problem. If Iran attacks any GCC pipelines then Iran’s oil facilities and pipelines become targets as well.
This was addressed on Smerconish show this morning.
A Guest said that Iran still had about 20,000 drones physically the size of a queen size mattress, and costing about $20,000 each. He said the Iranians don’t have as much at risk and will not stop if we do not go in with ground troops. Air won’t do it alone.
The guest did not mention one kind of Air Power that stopped a fanatical Religious death cult regime in 1945, and did not require ground troops at all, just air power. I believe this is the only way this religious death cult will be stopped this time as well. But this time it is going to require our intelligence to find the mountain where their IRCG Leaders are hiding, and all of the Clergy Mullahs, and where they keep all the last of their armaments , and when these are located, drop a bomb sufficient to vaporized their mountain with its 300 feet of granite, and their caves, and their underground munitions plants, and their underground nuclear facilities, etc., all of it and all of them, to the last man.
Then we can negotiate with the remaining secular civilian government.
Will Europe China Russia the UN Canada be outraged?
(Huh, Canada, Hahaha.)
Why, of course they will.
They will ask “What outrage did IRAN do to deserve that kind of force?
I would answer:
How about starting a War with the USA FOURTY SEVEN Years Ago, WITH a SNEAK ATTACK, and killing Marines with Another sneak Attack, and I am sure participating in Another Sneak Attack at least to some extent, here in the USA Homeland about what, 25 years ago this year?
And I would continue:
“And what the F**k Do Any Of you Think You will Do About It?
I asked this fellowship here last week, did anyone else right after 9/11 go out and buy a Koran and read it to find out what we are up against? I know our leader thinks he is GODs own gift to mankind when it comes to dealmaking, but I know he has no more read a Koran than he has a Bible. He does not understand that he is dealing with a culture that has as One of its Commandments to the Faithful is to “Lie to the Infidel.”
That is anyone that is not a follower of their particular denomination of Islam, not just us Christians and Jews.
Someone in Washington DC who reads this board, need to pull their head out, and get a message to the President to Pull His Head Out and forget the notion of making a deal with these fanatics.
Find where they are, and use a big enough ordinance to Vaporize the whole lot of them. Then start on their infrastructure starting with thier water storage dams until they yell “Enough” like the Japanese Emperor.
Do I have to say on this forum what kind of ordinance I am talking about?
re: “A Guest said …”
Name the guest?
I did read the Koran and you are accurate. No “deal” will ever be procured with Iran, never.
I’ll agree with most of your comments but 9/11! Based on finding in tact passports in the rubble? Seriously? Phone calls in the air (all available thru FOI requests) in 2001? I can only assume you took the clot shot to believe such nonsense. I was raised on FDRs treason at Pearl so I don’t believe anything the government says without a lot of proof.
THEY SETTLED FOR LESS AND PRICED THEMSELVES RIGHT OUT OF EXISTENCE. BYE BYE! SO LONG! HAVE A NICE DAY! THANKS FOR PLAYING!
I am paraphrasing, a lot, the essence of what President Trump once said….I take and assess a situation for what it is and just come up with an optimum solution. I don’t wish it to be what it was. I just fix it.
This is the essence of what he said. I always remember it bc he doesn’t do the essence of “insanity”…doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome. He makes lemonade out of lemons.
Does anyone else find it ironic that the couuntries that have never embraced our form of capitalism are the ones that are now suffering?
Well played, Mr. Trump. Well played.
Persian Gulf oil shipped through Hormuz in VLCC supertankers has historically been the lowest cost oil supply in the world. That’s why everybody bought it.
Bypassing the Straits adds cost and imposes capacity constraints. It will make Persian Gulf oil less profitable for the producers (less wealth for Sheiks and Mullahs.) It makes other oil fields more competitive by comparison. (More money for US, Venezuela, Russia, Nigeria, etc.)
and you get a rat line, and you get a rat line, everybody gets a rate line…
F them all. Good riddance.
Still the radical Islamist terrorists will continue to fund terror and develop nuclear weapons. We must find a way for the Persians to take control away from the extremists.
MAGA FABULOUS!
Well, that might be fine and dandy, but the price of gas seems to be permanently raised.
I’m confused by this post. Isn’t Bessent just tossing out more propaganda meant to downplay the consequences of horrible foreign policy decisions?
(In the age of Nordsteam, our confidence is in the reliability of future pipelines?)
Sundance’s wise reminders about “pretending not to know things” seems key here.
Hopefully, Trump can finally see that he was manipulated by Lindsey, Bibi, etc. and he’ll get get out of this mess ASAP.