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Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
You're listening to American Power. I'm your host, Nat Towson, stand-up comedian, speechwriter, other kind of writer, and most importantly, podcast host. With me is our panel of experts. Up first, our military expert, Chad Scott.
Hey, how's it going, everyone? Former U.S. Army officer with more than 16 years of experience in combat, command and multinational military planning. I've had deployments to South Korea, Iraq, in service of NATO in Europe, and Hopkins grad.
Chad, thanks so much for being here. And I would also like to introduce our second expert, our expert on energy. You know him as Mr. Global. Please welcome Matt Randolph.
Thanks, Nat. Globally recognized oil and gas expert and energy expert and Forbes energy contributor. Thanks for having me.
So as our focus right here on this podcast is the intersection of how power is amassed in America in both the energy sector and the military sector, a lot of that is in the news lately. Where are we at right now militarily March 30th, 2026?
Well, currently, we're kind of at this weird intersection of not really understanding what we're going to be doing versus what we have already done. Clearly, the United States showed extraordinary military power by being able to essentially disable the entirety of Iran's navy, their air defenses, their air power.
So for all intents and purposes, we control the military aspects of what Iran can do within their country. The problem is, as we're seeing in the news, is we are very, very much struggling to control what is happening in the Strait of Hormuz. And that means that obviously trade, energy prices, everything like that are going up.
And as of right now, we're seeing this potential push for a resolution to that by using troops on ground. That is a highly... volatile situation. There's a lot of potential political toxicity and certainly economic toxicity, as I'm sure Matt can attest to in the oil markets with having a boots on ground approach. The United States is very capable of
conducting the kind of operations necessary but it's not going to be easy it's not going to be without casualties and the concern right now is what does that look like because as with everything in this campaign it's quite vague we're getting a lot of vagueness we we don't necessarily know what the the outcomes are the goals keep shifting and evolving
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Chapter 2: What is the current military situation with Iran?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but part of the reason we're experiencing, for example, an increase in food prices is not because we're purchasing oil from Iran, but because shipping oil is being purchased from Iran, which impacts the price of shipping food to America and other goods to America, I should say.
Yeah, all goods. Shipping fuel in Singapore is at record highs. It broke the record in 2022. And in addition to that, with really, really high shipping fuel prices, you get a lot of delays in delivery of goods because ships slow way down because they're literally burning through millions of dollars worth of fuel if they don't slow down. But in addition to that, I think it's
30% of the fertilizer and urea comes through the Strait of Hormuz, and that's going to have a huge impact on crop yields in the future. There's literally going to be less food in the world now because of this. And that's best case scenario. That's if this doesn't escalate any farther at all.
Right. It's not as if we can suddenly compensate production to make up for the amount of time that we have not been shipping goods. And that's if, as we're discussing, the Strait were to be open right now with no future consequences. And it doesn't exactly sound to me like the Trump administration is going to fold this up neatly in the next week.
What are we what are we looking at as potential as as, you know, greater consequences down the road?
So just to go back, if the Strait opens today, it's effectively still closed.
Mm-hmm.
there there's over 2000 ships sitting in the Strait of Hormuz that need to be refueled before they can leave. Like it'll, it'll probably take a month to just clear out the Strait once it's open. So, you know, it's not like they open the door and everyone just leaves and goes to where they're going. These, these sailors on these ships have been sitting on these ships for now for a month.
They're, they don't have a food. They don't have water. They're low on fuel. They certainly can't get to their destination. Right. Uh, I think there's seven or eight fueling places in the Persian Gulf, but thousands of ships. And it can take up to 24 hours to refuel one of these ships. So even if it opens today, it's effectively not fully open for a month.
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Chapter 3: How is the closure of the Strait of Hormuz affecting global trade?
Oh, I know this one. It's a big boat at a 45-degree angle.
Right? A very large crude tanker, a VLCC. The largest tankers, they're too deep in the water. Well, they call it the draft. They could pass, but they could only be partially loaded. And so there's a lot of those in the Red Sea right now that would have to figure out some way to offload oil or just sit there because they can't get through the Strait of Hormuz.
Now, all the other tankers and ships can't. But having to route through the Suez Canal, having to route through the Suez Canal adds weeks to delivery as well, depending on where they're going. There's a reason they go through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It's faster. So...
Adds weeks and then reduces some capacity as well, you're saying.
Adds weeks will probably reduce capacity through the Red Sea by a couple of million barrels a day over what they have in it right now. So that's why oil prices today jump to 105. You know, they've kind of languished in the low to mid-90s here for a few weeks, even dropped into the 80s a couple of times. Today, they hit 105. That's because the Houthis entered the war.
Trump said, we're thinking about putting troops on the ground and hitting Karg Island of all places. He wants to take over Iran's oil. The second those troops' feet hit the ground, anywhere east of the halfway point through the Persian Gulf, that Bab el-Mandeb Strait will be closed.
Okay, so not to go full Doomer mode, but let's imagine we're prepping, we're imagining for this reality, let's say they don't get the Strait of Hormuz opened, then the Bab el-Mendem Strait is closed. What does that look like for us?
If that happens in the foreseeable future, I'm saying, if this troop surge, if this putting troops on the ground leads to closing the Strait, and now we're getting routed through the Suez Canal, let's say this happens this week. What does that look like for the reality of the energy market and for prices on everything? The economic impacts of that.
Well, there's good news and there's bad news. So the bad news is that I think it's 12% of all global trade goes through that strait. And the Suez Canal and through the Red Sea. And that's not just oil. That's everything. All global trade. Right. So the bad news is, you know, some people are predicting two hundred dollar oil prices. I know the governments even have plans for it.
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Chapter 4: What are the economic impacts of the conflict on oil prices?
Yeah. Chad, there's something I've been thinking about. Do you think it's possible that Donald Trump asked Putin, you know, hey, if you'll stop helping Iran, I'll let you get that oil to Cuba.
Yeah.
And because that oil to Cuba story broke the day after the story broke about Russia helping Iran with satellite imagery and other stuff. And of course, Putin would say, sure. And then, of course, Putin wouldn't follow through, but it would make Trump feel good. Like, do you think that's a thing that could have happened?
I think when it comes to anything that Trump deals with Putin, Putin is playing Trump consistently. And so, yeah, he could have said it's just like that situation where China does the same thing, where these were Chinese oil on Pakistani tankers. There was some deal made where China was going to limit some more of the efforts they were going to provide to Russia. That's what they told Trump.
And for intelligence purposes, they have not stopped. And then when those Pakistani tankers, those 20 tankers traversed, Trump... saw that he got nothing for it, and so he just claimed that that was his deal and said, oh, they have gifted me 20 tankers through the Strait of Hormuz. And it wasn't even American-bound or Western-bound oil.
It was Chinese oil on Pakistani tankers, and he claimed it as his own. So I fully believe that if there's anyone, any country on the global stage that is benefiting consistently from what Trump is doing in Iran, it is Russia.
Yeah. And as you're saying, I mean, it's not that it's I mean, one of our old favorite phrases, quid pro quo with Putin. It's that Trump, I think, has, as you said, weird fondness. I would say sort of he's enamored with successful autocrats. And yeah. It's strange how much of his emotions are what seem to be driving the ship, but that does seem to be a big part of it.
And I think in the relationship with Putin, you see that really clearly. And I think to what you said earlier is that he's clearly being... I mean, I'm not shocked that the... former KGB agent leader of Russia is getting the upper hand in in familial negotiations or familiar negotiations with our former real estate huckster president.
Like that's those are different levels of con man or of manipulation, I think.
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Chapter 5: What are the possible consequences of closing the Bab al-Mandeb Strait?
They've already won in that respect, right? So if you can secure that somehow through agreement or whatever, maybe you got to leave troops in the region or something.
And do you put Trump on an aircraft carrier for that photo shoot? Or do you maybe do an oil tanker this time for the mission accomplished?
However you want to do it. But the best case scenario, a sign that says mission happened. Well, no, because what I think about is, you know, think about how many people were struggling in this country before this started. And, you know, a lot of people were struggling with food, inflation and, you know, twelve hundred dollar electric bills and health insurance is triple my health insurance.
almost quadrupled this year. Like, I don't know how people that aren't as fortunate as I am survive anymore. And so this is what I think about.
This is still part of your best case scenario, I just want to point out.
This is what I think about when I'm thinking about the effects this war is going to have on the people that were already struggling to no end. Like, what's going to happen to these people? Because it's going to get bad. So the best case scenario is we get the hell out of there right now. Because there's no payoff. There's nothing else for us to do there, as far as I'm concerned.
You know, Trump wants to say, oh, well, there's new people in charge. Technically, that's regime change. Whatever you want to say, nobody believes you anyway. Let's go, right? Like, I'm not going to hold you to account for anything. I never did. I never believed a word you said to begin with.
Make the branding, whatever it's going to be. He's already going to set the narrative regardless and just get out as fast as possible.
Yeah, he's going to do that anyway, so...
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