Trump announced Iran will not impose tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. No fees. No insurance premiums. No charges of any kind. Ships pass through for free, just like they have for the past several thousand years of maritime history.
The Islamic Republic has apparently agreed to continue doing exactly what it was already doing. Groundbreaking diplomacy. Someone get the State Department a participation trophy.
Twenty percent of the world's oil passes through this strait every single day. Iran controls the northern coastline. They could theoretically close it whenever they want. Instead they've decided not to monetize it like a f*cking parking garage. What generosity. What restraint.
Retail traders heard this news and immediately checked their shipping ETFs. They wanted to know if ZIM was a buy. They pulled up their Robinhood accounts. They scanned for maritime stocks that might benefit from toll-free passage through a waterway that has never charged tolls in modern recorded history. They were searching for the edge. The angle. The play.
There is no play.
The Strait of Hormuz is twenty-one miles wide at its narrowest point. Millions of barrels of crude move through it daily. It connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman. Iran saying they won't charge tolls is like McDonald's announcing they won't start requiring a credit check before you order a Big Mac. It's not news. It's the absence of something that was never going to happen.
But Trump framed it as a win. A deal. An assurance. And somewhere in Nebraska, a guy with four hundred dollars in a Fidelity account just went long on crude futures because he thinks he understands geopolitics now.
Photo by Saifee Art on Unsplash
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