“Control” is ambiguous.
Although to be honest, oil companies will just charge everybody the tariff and pocket the profits.
In the end, they'll pay extortion fees to two parties.
BTW, what will the US do? Sink oil carriers? Board them and take them by force regardless of their flag?
Board or sink anyone who don't surrender to the extortion. Flags only work if nations respect them, and nations that are willing to pirate ships is very unlikely to respect flags.
The Hormuz strait is now basically the same as coast of Somalia, except that now the pirates has missiles, rockets and torpedoes.
"The U.S.A... will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World," he said.
Due to the huge trust deficit between the American and Iranian leaders, best course for Iran maybe to hold of all diplomatic engagements till the elections, even if that means they will have to bear the brunt of the American military for a few months more. It's a very risky approach as military escalation is very much possible (Trump has already managed to get NATO members approval for this current escalation) and they will also have to watch out for the Trump administration trying to revive the Abraham Accords and try and normalise relations between the Saudis and the Israelis (that seems to one of the options Trump and Netanyahu are considering as a way to politically salvage something from this middle-eastern mess they created - https://www.axios.com/2026/05/24/trump-iran-war-israel-musli... ).
How much money has this single bad decision cost the population of the planet?
Straight up $5,000 my parents had to pay extra for their flight to Europe which was already booked. And that was just for changed flights due to Emirates (I think) being grounded.
Trump will be richer just by dint of having made everyone else poorer by a measurable amount.
Have they won this one yet?
I've been building a strong case to be concerned on this topic. I am in Florida, which is as far as I know, a power island with no adjacent state agreements for grid resilience. And I think we know the CIA's perspective on this, which is grim, and severe. There's the component vulnerability, the supply chain with its delays and such, and now, a geopolitical scenario kind of making bad things a bit more plausible.
But there's a larger point here. Iran has been using the ability to close the Strait as leverage. "We can deny the transit of oil, so you have to not trample on our interests." Well, the US also has the capability to close the Strait, and therefore the same leverage - including that leverage over Iranian oil.
And by Trump saying this, he's pointing that out. Pointing it out in a way the Iranians should understand, because it's the same language that they used.
I don't know if Trump is deliberately doing that, or just doing an extortion threat.
Having said that, throughout the years I have made the odd comment about how fragile the grid is, and how fragile society is in its dependence upon the grid. My favourite way to demonstrate the fragility of the grid is referencing CyberSquirrel1: https://www.cybersquirrel1.com/
If small furry animals can accidentally take down segments of the grid for hours at a time, the scope for intentional (human) sabotage must be pretty darn broad. I feel like I don't want to call much attention to it because it feels like it would be both easy and effective at the same time as requiring essentially no direct violence against another human (it's just a direct violence against a community, but that's a more vague concept).
My favourite example from cybersquirrel1 was an eagle that dropped a sheep skull on <some critical part> of an electrical substation that shorted out a whole regional area for a time.
And then we have n amount of CVEs in the wild with yet to be discovered exploits on SCADA, ICS systems and much more. I was actually in Pinellas during the water facility hack of 2021. Maybe not a terrific example, but if you truly think we're locked down and secure, by all means, share the confidence, as I could use it. The U.S. grid depends on long‑lead, foreign-sourced critical components and has documented ICS/SCADA vulnerabilities; resilience is not as strong as typically assumed.
Otherwise, I guess I fail to catch your point. I'm wrong, is it?
I suppose, considering you are not the one I asked, yet imposed a veiled answer, indicates an unconditional on the above, nu?
Your last paragraph reads like veiled innuendo, but is so veiled that it's hard to be sure. At a minimum, your post would be stronger without it.
Take care. Thanks for the insight.