Saagar Enjeti

and military effort towards these conflicts.

But increasingly you see that the sanctions not only don't really work or they take a very long time to work, they also have really counterproductive effects.

One of them is that the targets of these sanctions begin to cooperate more.

So a lot of these countries are driven together more by the fact that they're all exposed to this US pressure.

We can see that at the moment, particularly in the rise of this big shadow fleet.

So a very large part of the global transport infrastructure that is now being devoted to basically trading oil outside of the reach of U.S.

sanctions.

And increasingly also regimes that are exposed to it, countries that are exposed to sanctions becoming more and more hardline.

They don't see any real benefits.

a reason to negotiate with the United States, and they don't really trust the United States' negotiating position.

And for that reason, I think that sanctions, often first billed as an alternative to war, have now really become kind of an on-ramp to war.

And this is a conflict where we see that too, really.

Yes, absolutely.

And it'll be very interesting to see in the next few weeks if a regime for the control of the Strait of Hormuz emerges.

There are some indications now in the last few days that Iran has begun to levy tolls on ships that can pass.

And moreover, that it is implementing a kind of tiered system of egress.

So being able to leave the Strait of Hormuz, friendly countries that are friendly to Iran.

So we have confirmations that Pakistan has

but also the Philippines and China have been able to send tankers and ships through the Strait of Hormuz, can go through it without any problem.

Then there seems to be a group of neutrals that are forced to pay tolls.