Washington’s machinations, designed to gain control of the Strait of Hormuz and other strategic resources, drive escalation.
Supremacist View
Insatiable Greed
One demand that Donald Trump has been emphasizing is gaining control of the Strait of Hormuz (which is located over 11000 kilometers away from the US). Trump has also hinted at a desire to charge other countries a transit fee of 20% of the value of their cargo as a reimbursement to the US, a dream he has held since the late 1980s. With Trump’s proposal to charge vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which the US may attempt to implement in future, Washington will not only benefit from the problem it has created but will also appear like it launched the ongoing war to gain control of the Strait from the regional countries. Trump, who recently claimed that he is not guided by any law but his own morals, follows a supremacist attitude adopted by the US leaders, including Barack Obama, that the country is exempt from laws and standards that apply to others as it is “exceptional.”
In one and a half years of Trump’s second term, the flamboyant president has threatened to annex Canada, Greenland, and Gaza through military conquests, purchases, and concessions. Also, he announced to Congress that he had started the process of wresting control of the Panama Canal back to the US in 2025. No other country has displayed this level of greed. As if that wasn’t enough, in early 2026, he claimed oil resources and infrastructure in Venezuela before conducting a military operation that killed around 100 people and led to the kidnapping of president Nicholas Maduro. Afterwards, Trump gloated that he was in control of the Venezuelans’ oil resources and their sales, the proceeds of which he directed to a private bank account in Qatar. From the foregoing, it is apparent that the US believes that all resources globally belong to Washington, and that other sovereign countries that protect their wealth for their citizens are an inconvenience that must be overcome by the US military. This mentality is driving the ongoing escalation around the Strait of Hormuz.
Hero Syndrome
The Washington establishment believes it should be creating problems and forcing the rest of the world to pay for solutions in a style tantamount to charging other countries rent for existing. As early as 1987, Trump was featured lamenting that countries such as Japan were not paying the US for what he described as protecting oil from the Persian Gulf, which went to power their economies. Trump’s claim showed how some in the US believe that every successful country should be paying to exist. Surprisingly, the US deployment in the Persian Gulf in the 1980s was due to its own strategic myopia of attempting to use Iraq to topple the Islamic Republic of Iran, which had recently deposed the Western puppet regime of Reza Pahlavi. Surprisingly, voices in the US still wanted countries to pay Washington for purporting to solve a crisis it had created. Despite Washington’s comprehensive assistance to Iraq, the Iranian side stood its ground against all odds, resulting in a strategic impasse with each side attacking the other’s oil tankers, in what was described as Tanker Wars. The US was supporting Iraq while posing as if it was only securing the flow of energy, and Trump’s demand that countries needed to pay shows serious Hero Syndrome. Further, Trump argued that Kuwait should have given up to 25% of its oil revenue to the US because of the assistance it received in selling oil, which could only be admissible if the US had not caused the crisis altogether.
Trump’s July 13, 2026 view that countries should reimburse the US with 20% of the value of their goods transiting through the Strait of Hormuz is reminiscent of the statements he made in 1987, seen earlier. It not only reveals the mafia-style thought running US foreign relations, but also exemplifies the intellectual bankruptcy of the ruling class that has refused to evolve past the 1980s. Clearly, Washington does not believe that it should positively contribute to the world, but wants to create crises and extort the world through them. It is unbelievable that arguments proposed in 1987 should be attempted today, nearly 40 years later, as if the world has been static. No country should pay a dime to Washington for the crises it created. Instead, Washington should be paying other countries for launching a war of choice that has restricted the global flow of energy and adversely affected other economies.
Facing Consequences of Greed and Myopia
Iran is progressing well in imposing costs on Washington’s murderous adventure. Iran’s innovation and resilience have made Washington end up directly participating in this aggression and facing some costs rather than hiding behind Israel, which would be its ideal. In the 1980s, Washington was able to significantly ravage Iran by acting through Iraq. Also, as opposed to the 1980s, where it could bomb Iran’s navy during the Tanker War and still managed to play the hero by escorting oil exports in the Persian Gulf, the US today has been shut out of the strategic chokepoint altogether. Washington, and its regional hostages (previously allies), have been unable to unblock the Iranian blockade, calling into question the protection it has sold them in numerous defense agreements and weapon purchases. Also, the Persian Gulf monarchies that prop up the US currency are teetering around economic recession due to disruption in their oil exports. Washington is hard-pressed to explain to these allies why it started this war, or to justify why it should continue acting as a security guarantor while it cannot protect its military bases.
Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa
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