Saagar Enjeti

And here the question is really whether Iran imposes a very heavy toll or if it's going to be a light one.

One of the things about this current energy crisis caused by the war is that actually the cost of one or two dollars per barrel toll is not that much.

So it actually, I think, might be surprising how quickly countries see this as a price worth paying to regain access to some of their energy flows.

After all, the United States has imposed 15% tariffs on most other countries last year, and most countries accept that too.

So it's actually, I think, possible that countries accept this more quickly than we might expect.

And then the final group of countries that those are hostile countries in Iran's words, they are continued to be, they're continuing to be denied access to the Gulf and, and also the ability to leave from there.

And I think one of the things we might see is that Iran is going to really use that three tiered system to try and break up some of the coalition behind the war and to try and move countries that the U S is now hoping might help open to straight up removes and, and,

tear those countries away from the United States, try and explore some rifts in that coalition.

And particularly Asian countries are in a very dire situation, so they really need access.

So we'll have to see how it's used, but potentially a very powerful source of diplomatic leverage for Iran here.

Yeah, that certainly seems to be one hope.

Whether they can do it is an open question, but they definitely have means available to them in the infrastructure that's grown up around that shadow fleet to make those payments and receive them.

And the question is how many neutral countries and other traders in the rest of the world are going to enter that system and use it basically to settle these trades, even if they in doing so run the risk of being exposed to US financial sanctions.

And that's going to be a difficult calculus to make.

But I think as this energy crisis gets worse, we will see more and more countries trying to run the risk of being entangled in US financial sanctions, because ultimately, what you would like more and what countries need more for their economy is energy.

fertilizer, all the things that possibly the straightforward moves, right?

So there's a real premium on being able to access the physical goods.

And some measure of financial sanctions risk may need to be tolerated.

And moreover, we've seen also the Trump administration already lift some sanctions on Iranian oil already at sea.

They've lifted them on Russian oil at sea.