Go Get Your Own Oil
On March 31, 2026, the President of the United States told countries like the UK to go to the Strait of Hormuz and “just take” fuel. He said Iran had been “essentially, decimated” and the hard part was done. He told allies who “refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran” that America wouldn’t be there to help anymore. Then he offered to sell them jet fuel.
This was posted on Truth Social. Not in a diplomatic cable. Not through back channels. On social media, like it was a product launch.
Five thousand kilometres away, government workers in Thailand were told to take the stairs instead of the elevator to save energy. Vietnam scrapped import duties on petroleum to prevent shortages. The Philippines declared a national energy emergency and moved to a four-day workweek. Myanmar imposed alternating driving days. Petrol stations in Hanoi had queues stretching down the block. In Singapore, Aster Chemicals declared force majeure — meaning they could not honour their contracts because feedstock had stopped arriving.
All of this because the United States and Israel struck Iran on February 28, 2026, killing the Supreme Leader. Iran retaliated by closing the Strait of Hormuz. Tanker traffic dropped 95%. Brent crude hit $126 a barrel. Qatar’s Ras Laffan LNG complex was hit by Iranian drones — damage that will take three to five years to repair. The expected global LNG glut that was supposed to ease Asian energy costs for the next decade disappeared overnight.
84% of the crude oil that normally flows through Hormuz is bound for Asia. 83% of the LNG. This was never a Western crisis. It was always an Asian one.
Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan said it out loud in an interview with Reuters on March 23. He pointed out that by 2019, America had become a net energy exporter. The strategic calculus from the Carter Doctrine era — when America needed Hormuz open for its own survival — had completely flipped. He then said he suspected Trump’s answer to ASEAN would be: it’s an Asian problem, not an American problem.
A week later, Trump confirmed it on Truth Social.
## The Strait as a Loyalty Test
Iran didn’t just close Hormuz. It opened it selectively.
On March 26, Iran announced that ships from five nations — China, Russia, India, Iraq, and Pakistan — would be allowed to transit. Malaysia and Thailand negotiated their own access separately. According to Lloyd’s List, the IRGC was assessing transit payments in Chinese yuan.
Think about what that means. Iran is deciding who gets energy and who doesn’t. And the toll is being collected in a currency that isn’t the US dollar, through a chokepoint the US no longer depends on, by a military force the US just tried to destroy but couldn’t eliminate.
The IRGC is a 47-year-old parallel state controlling roughly half of Iran’s economy. It doesn’t dissolve because a Supreme Leader dies. It adapts. And right now it’s adapting by turning a shipping lane into a geopolitical sorting mechanism.
China isn’t just getting through. It’s getting through on terms that build an alternative financial architecture, one transit at a time.
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