In what can only be described as the most innovative approach to middle-class wealth destruction since the invention of the payday loan, the Trump administration has announced a 20% tariff on goods passing through international straits. Because apparently, when you control a waterway, you own it — like a toll booth operator with nuclear weapons.
The announcement came as the third consecutive night of US strikes on Iran lit up the night sky, which is the kind of escalation ladder you climb when diplomacy feels too much like actual work. The UAE, not wanting to be left out of the condemnation business, rushed to call Iran’s tanker attacks “brazen,” which is rich coming from a region where everyone is either striking, blockading, or sanctioning someone else on any given Tuesday.
Here’s the beautiful part: markets barely flinched. Oil futures wiggled a little. Shipping stocks yawned. The actual people who move goods through these straits — you know, the ones paying the 20% tax — will absorb the cost, which will show up in your grocery bill sometime around August. But sure, let’s keep treating global commerce like a game of Risk played by people with actual militaries.
The real genius move? Nobody seems to have thought through what happens when every country with a strategic waterway decides they also deserve a cut. The Thames? 15%. The Panama Canal? They’re probably already drawing up the paperwork. We have finally created a system where moving anything anywhere costs more than the thing itself. Capitalism has achieved its final form.