Strait Crazy

Trump is at it again.

16

Comments

So, this morning, there is this:

Trump: "We're gonna keep the strait, and we'll probably run it. We'll become the guardian of the strait. We should be reimbursed for that. When we do that, we're gonna be reimbursed. We're gonna get paid."

Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2026-07-13T12:23:11.374Z

And this:

The way he repeats the word “deal” is like a man who is upset trying to buy a new car and is insisting to the sales manager that the guy on the lot quoted him a lower price and, no, he doesn’t want the undercoat. Maybe, just maybe, sending out a couple of untrained real estate developers who think international diplomacy is the same thing as some petty business contract is a bad idea?

And the whole “getting paid” stuff is just juvenile nonsense.

Moreover, we are seeing a reality TV star think that he can just host his way into the commercial break so that the producers can engineer a dramatic turn in the next act of the show.

Meanwhile, all of this is about his inability to get us back to some version of the status quo ante that he blew up by launching this foolish war.

This is what happens when you elect an utterly unqualified person to occupy the most powerful office in the world.

And yes, this is hardly news, but the scope remains breathtaking.

16 responses to “Strait Crazy”

  1. Suppose you find the universal drone killing spell and also somehow take out every last Iranian missile, so Iran can’t ever threaten to close off Hormuz.

    Is El taco serious about stationing navy ships there to board or fire upon any ship which tries to transit without paying him a toll? Would regional allies* like the UAE or Oman allow their land to be used as bases to attack such ships?

    If this were a million years ago, say 2022, and a US president had said something like that, they’d have been slapped down by all parties and the whole media, minus a few in the fringe tinfoil hat brigade. Alas, the tinfoil brigades are at the helm today.

    *Or is that “allies.”

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  2. Meanwhile gas is still $1.00 more than when Fatso started this mess. And this fantasy is his solution?
    And 77M of us thought this clown was competent?
    What a joke.

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    1. You gotta go patronize those mysterious ‘Freedom Fuel’ stations, obvs!

  3. We can only hope that the felon continues to kick the can down the road till he finally exits the WH (the sooner the better). That will leave the successor a bunch of bad choices, but also a situation that will be different than what exists today.

    The craziness? Well it’s the felon.

  4. President Trump and his teams utter lack of understanding of Iran had me thinking of a podcast I watched on YouTube last night.

    I watched Trevor Noah’s What Now? Podcast because the subject was What the West Gets Wrong About China, and I was curious. He had on China Analyst Alice Han and I watched all 90 + minutes of the Podcast. It is painful how much we view China with in some cases, decades old outdated information.

    Also, if some of the back/forth between her and Trevor and his podcast partner were not scripted ahead of time, I have to say huzzah to that!

    Alice was able to hold her own, and had some funny replies to the jokes that were being flung all over the place on the Podcast.

    So yeah, so much of how we view Iran and/or assume their motives for taking certain actions is based on woefully out of date “intelligence data” we have about Iran.

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    1. Plenty of people on this (and other relatively leftish message boards like Slate) will simply declare Iran and similar governments as death-cults and as such operating on unknowable principles or not even worth talking to.

  5. Didn’t Mr. Rubio make a speech two or three days ago saying that our aim was free passage in the Strait as before the war? These frequent changes in America’s goals send a message that negotiations with Trump are never in good faith but always changeable at a moment’s notice. No negotiations means keep shooting. No brakes and no off-ramp means escalation till one side is totally defeated. Lobbing bombs from a distance is probably not enough; direct insertion of troops will be necessary.

  6. What is the difference to the rest of the world whether they pay the US or Iran? None of it makes sense.

    1. @Scott

      In this case, the difference is huge (paying US 20% of the cargo’s net worth vs. paying Iran $2 million, which less than 1% of the value of the oil carried by a large-sized tanker).

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  7. So, unilaterally announcing a 20% fee on all shipping. There’s a word for that, surely…

    Has there ever been a world leader, even whackos like Qaddafi, who’s words have meant less? I mean, Trumps words have literally no value. He makes announcements that have no prior discussion, no follow ups, and no consequences for nothing happening.

    1. dazedandconfused Avatar
      dazedandconfused

      Iran said in a similar situation a month or so ago that the US negotiators had told them to ignore all social media posts by Trump, saying they are strictly for domestic consumption and have no meaning in real negotiations.

      I suspect they told the truth. In a social media post a week or so ago Trump set the price for gasoline in the US at about $2.50 a gallon, IIRC. Didn’t and isn’t happening and nobody cares.

      The would would IMO be much better off if everybody stopped paying any attention to them. Starve the troll.

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      1. The consensus of many pundits (I know) after the NATO summit in Ankara last week was that Europe no longer takes El Taco seriously. It seems Iran no longer does, either.

      2. Ah, the fabled “reverse madman” strategy, where our adversaries are told to ignore the President’s lunatic rambling.

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    2. Did Trump mention if the 20% fee applies only to ships exiting the Gulf, or does it also apply to ships entering? The Gulf countries import a lot of food and consumer goods through the Strait.

  8. It has been three days and this is the first we are hearing about this?

    Trump notifies Congress of new war against Iran

    President Donald Trump formally notified lawmakers this weekend that the nation is once again at war with Iran, giving his administration another 60-day clock to use the military in the region without congressional approval.

    In a letter to Congress dated July 10, obtained by POLITICO, Trump stated that the strikes that began on July 7 represent “military action consistent with my responsibility to protect Americans and United States’ interests both at home and abroad.”

  9. Lindsey Graham and the rest of the “finish the job” and “seize the strait” crowd were/are out of their damned minds. The public has no stomach for a protracted ground war, and has little reason to think it’s necessary. But we’re in this mess now, and the administration has to come to terms with some kind of payoff or benefits conferred upon Iran to get out of it. We should’ve learned something from Russia’s mess — Iran has a formidable attack drone program that was directed at Ukraine, and a major power’s cruise and ballistic missiles won’t last forever against even a mid-sized country. We’ve known for a while that Russia is firing cruise missiles that are fresh off the production line, and now we’re depleting our supplies every day.