521. Trump’s Naval Blockade: Is America Becoming a Rogue State?

“What's beginning to happen here is an America which doesn't even pay lip service to global norms. In fact, celebrates outrageously chaotically defying them. The US isn't Israel; it's not a small state with no peer competitors in the Middle East. It is the architect of the entire global order and it faces with China a peer competitor.”

“This is classic Trump. I've got to ceasefire, I'm going to send JD Vance, and it's all going to be done. And they give up because Iran didn't fold on day one. They started a process, they decided it's not gone exactly according to plan on day one, therefore we blow up the process.”

“Global oil prices are now rising. Global economies are already feeling the shock because, in effect, what this means is that vessels that were not favoured by Iran, previously were very reluctant to go through the Straits, but vessels with an Iranian stamp could go through. Most of them were going through freely. The US has now stopped that second category of vessels.”

“As well I suggested that the UK should join the European Union on the same day as Ukraine. You take UK, Norway, Turkey, and Ukraine, you're adding an awful lot of heft to any military alliance at a time when the Americans do appear to be leaving us to it. It adds an awful lot of heft to any military alliance.”

“This morning, Zelenskyy, there's a post that we read, Zelenskyy, for the first time in the war, an enemy position was captured entirely by ground robotic systems and drones without any infantry. A robot entered the most dangerous zones instead of a soldier and took the positions.”

“12:43 AM, most Americans are asleep now. He announces the blockade of Hormuz. 2:35 AM, he's maybe just had a little doze or he's had a hamburger or something. 2:35 AM, he posts an article about Joe Biden. He is not sleeping, he is pretending to be Jesus, he is posting all night, he is not well.”

“President Xi Jinping's four propositions on safeguarding and promoting peace and stability in the Middle East... is underlining to the rest of the world that at a time when America appears to be so unreliable and unpredictable, China is operating according to what he's setting out as a group of principles that they stick to.”

“I was looking at a recent model. Capital economics predicts that Qatar's economy will contract by 13% this year, that UAE's may contract by 8%. To put that in context, under normal growth conditions, that would be seven years it would need to get back the growth.”