Trump's Reverse Nixon Strategy: Bring Russia In, Shut China Out

"Navigation Extremely Limited": Top Shipper Warns IRGC Mines Complicate Hormuz Normalization The top executive of Japan's largest shipping company told the Financial Times in an exclusive weekend interview that the path toward normalization in the Strait of Hormuz remains far more complicated than anticipated. He warned that shipping volumes may stay well below prewar levels for months, as IRGC-laid mines are forcing vessels into narrow, safer corridors near Iran and Oman. "The routes available for navigation are extremely limited — they're very narrow corridors," Takaya Soga, chief executive of Japan's NYK...

Kuwait Pounded By Iranian Barrage As Oil And Desalination Plants Come Under Attack Kuwait was bombarded overnight in one of the fiercest Iranian retaliatory strikes since the US-Iran conflict erupted in late February, with missiles and one-way drones targeting power infrastructure and other critical energy assets. Local outlet Kuwait News Agency reports an unspecified site of the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation suffered "significant material losses" as the week-long flare-up in Gulf tensions has derailed any near-term normalization of tanker flows through the Strait of Hormuz. There was a report that the Al-Subiya power...

Bessent's "Suffocating" Iranian Regime Strategy Materializes In Kharg Island Satellite Imagery Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's description of "suffocating" the Iranian regime through economic and financial pressure, whether via sanctions or the US military blockade of the world's most critical maritime chokepoint, now appears to be showing up in the data. New geospatial intelligence indicates that Iran's main crude export terminal has gone quiet, while a separate report suggests seaborne oil exports have effectively been halted for the past month. The first report comes from Bloomberg, which cited European satellite imagery showing a...