Trump brags about torching Iran's oil fleet, but we'll all pay the price
By ljdevon // 2026-09-11
Copy
 
The United States has spent the past week turning Iranian oil tankers into floating wreckage across the Gulf of Oman and the Strait of Hormuz, and President Donald Trump wants Americans to know it. "We've taken out about nine of their tankers," Trump told reporters Wednesday, adding a blunt warning that carries the weight of a man convinced the fight is nearly won: "You're going to see a lot more." What Trump did not say, is that every tanker sent to the bottom of the Gulf drags the global economy down with it. Six months into a war that began February 28, the United States and Iran are no longer just trading missiles. They are dismantling, cargo hold by cargo hold, the very shipping lanes that keep the modern world fed, fueled, and moving. Now precious oil is being dispersed into the ocean. Key points:
  • US Central Command says it destroyed eight Iranian crude carriers in two strikes, three on September 5 and five more on September 9.
  • Secretary of State Marco Rubio says Iran will keep "losing tankers" for every attempted strike on US naval vessels.
  • Iran claims retaliatory attacks on ten ships and fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan.
  • Brent crude has surged back above 100 dollars a barrel, and US diesel has hit an all time high above 5.94 dollars a gallon.
  • Trump predicts the war ends "immediately after" the November 3 midterms.
  • Roughly a fifth of the world's oil once moved through the Strait of Hormuz before the war choked it off.

The strikes Washington is celebrating

CENTCOM's account of Tuesday's operation reads like a target list checked off one-by-one. The Kaviz, the Charminar, the Horizon 1, and the Riesco were struck in the Gulf of Oman, while the Derya went down near Kharg Island. This is the loading point for the overwhelming majority of Iran's crude exports. American forces say crews were ordered off the vessels before they were rendered inoperable, a detail the Pentagon leans on to frame the strikes as surgical rather than reckless. Rubio was equally direct about the arithmetic Washington intends to enforce. "They lost five more last night. Four were damaged. One was sunk," he said, promising that Iran will "continue to pay a price" and that the administration intends to "strangle them economically." The tactic follows a policy Washington announced weeks ago: Whenever Iran's Revolutionary Guard fires on a US warship, an Iranian tanker pays for it. Officials insist the trade has been lopsided in America's favor, with the Islamic Republic's naval capacity gutted and its oil export machinery increasingly reduced to smoking hulls. Trump, characteristically triumphant, is already looking past the war entirely, predicting Tehran is simply trying to survive long enough to sway American voters. "I think the war will end immediately after the election because they can't hold out any longer," he said, while conceding that any future deal would stretch "a lot more than nuclear" onto the table. It sounds as if Trump is getting insecure about the outcome of the Midterm elections, and wonders whether voters believe that the US is winning this war.

The bill nobody wants to itemize

Here is where the celebratory press briefings run out of runway. Iran says it struck ten vessels near Hormuz, including tankers and, by its own claim, two US Navy ships, an assertion CENTCOM flatly denies. Ballistic missiles arced toward Jordan's Al-Azraq air base, with defenders intercepting the bulk of them before they could do harm. Crews near Bahrain and Kuwait have been warned to abandon ship altogether, a chilling instruction for merchant sailors who have nothing to do with the geopolitical chess match unfolding around them. The economic fallout is not theoretical. It is already showing up at the pump and on grocery shelves. Brent crude's climb past the psychological hundred dollar mark ripples outward into diesel -the fuel that moves trucks, tractors, and cargo ships worldwide. American diesel prices have already cracked their own historical ceiling. Before the war, roughly a fifth of the planet's oil supply threaded the needle of Hormuz daily. Analysts tracking tanker traffic report that flows through the strait have collapsed to a fraction of pre-war volume as the fighting resumed. That is not an abstraction for a trucker in Ohio or a family in Manila. It is the difference between an affordable grocery run and a painful one. Two nations locked in a contest of pride and strategy are, whether intentionally or not, strangling a chokepoint the entire world depends on. Washington frames every sunken tanker as a victory lap. Tehran frames every counterstrike as defiance. Meanwhile, ordinary people from Houston to Hanoi absorb the consequences in fuel bills, shipping delays, and food prices that refuse to come back down. Wars fought over oil have a habit of making oil the first casualty, and this one is no exception. Sources include: RT.com StarAdvertiser.com Stripes.com
Copy