Trump says U.S. to start blockading the Strait of Hormuz immediately
"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, who is strongly opposed to the idea of Iran charging ships a toll to pass through the strait.
"I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran. No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas," he said.
Are they trying to make Iran look good? Iran closing the strait is bad, so the US is going to close it too. That makes no sense! They validate Iran's actions and discredit their own talking points.
You have to lower your expectations.
This is nothing more than "I can't play with it, so I'm going to make sure you can't play with it."
It really, really is that simple.
So Trump is behaving like a toddler again. That tracks.
Reality TV presidency
Trump hasn’t made America great again, he’s been made America international joke.
And what happens when he holds Chinese ships hostage, I think France was getting ships through as well then there's India, Japan etc.
What happens when the fleets turn up to protect their ships, ww3 here we come I guess.
I could really go for some TACOs all of the sudden
Thankfully that’s always on the menu. This guy would have destroyed the country and probably the world long ago if he weren’t so cowardly and incompetent.
The US has slowly come alive to the issue of the world cutting them out of the conversation entirely with direct bilateral negotiations with Iran. This is the only way to forcefully inject the US back into the conversation. But as experts already point out, Iran has the home ground advantage. The US navy can maintain that position to block the strait, but antagonizing all of Asia will have consequences.
Asia's countries face serious shortages of gas and diesel - which is well known. If the US presents itself as not just the cause, but now the enforcer of this very precarious position, many US allies will be forced into a terrible choice: Loyalty or survival.
https://www.arabianbusiness.com/finance/economy/south-korea-seeks-to-move-26-stranded-vessels-through-strait-of-hormuz-during-ceasefire
I guess you meant to say loyalty for survival, or loyalty or death, but I think loyalty or survival is actually apt here.
Being Loyal to the mobster US is a very bad survival strategy at this point
Open the fucking strait you crazy bastard!
One thing I can agree with tbh.
That it should be toll-free?
Or that the US should control the Strait?
Personally I think it shows all the signs of Trump's inner toddler coming out screaming.
Agreed. His lack of any meaningful ability to not be a selfish scumbag will haunt America for decades to come.
Will America learn? Or will it continue sticking its fingers in its ears and ranting about 'the liberals'?
Rhetorical question, the answer is obvious.
The down votes here and below are very strange.
They didn't learn the first 8 times and history in that country repeats itself every 20 years.
My genuine hope is that Trump is such an extreme and specific personality that infected our politics at the “right” time (read: perfectly wrong time) that literally nobody else would be capable of doing the damage he is doing at the rate he is doing it.
Yes, he’s somewhat a symptom of fundamental problems in our system. But the safeguards we have in place would normally cause our devolution to happen much more slowly in which the eventual dystopia won’t feel as bad because each level down won’t feel as noticeably worse than the prior level.
So if we survive this term (huge fucking IF), then I believe we can actually have a slight rebuilding period until the next generation who is less aware of Trump’s bullshit are ready to get us back on track of proper deterioration.
You should know that the Hormuz strait is an international water so you must imagine what will happen if other countries with similar geographical condition follow this act. They'll think if Iran can get away with it so why can't they?
Why should the US get away with blockading it? It's not even our part of the world! And it's just Trump out for his own profits as usual.
Duh is it even need an explanation?