Saudi, Oil Market SCREWED After Houthi BLOCKADE

Let's turn now to Saudi Arabia and the ongoing situation with the Red Sea, which is highly determinative of where this war could go and the shortage in oil.We do want to kick off, though, with Mark Thiessen, who we showed a little bit of you earlier in our show, where here he says and pleads to the American people, if you can't handle $4 gasoline, then maybe we're just not a superpower anymore.Let's take a listen.

That sort of is the good news out there.

But if we can't handle $4 oil for a period of months in order to disarm Iran with a nuclear weapon, we're not a superpower anymore.

But there are a lot of Americans who their kitchen table issues matter to them more than foreign policy.

Yeah, easy for Mark to say.I see him at Whole Foods all the time.I'll say hi next time I see you there, Mark.Yeah, Tommy Lahren.You know, actually, people kind of care about this.

It's not unreasonable, by the way.

Yeah, you know, it's pretty disgusting to see these, like, think tank people with fake jobs who build their entire...Look, I talk for a living, so who am I?But I'm not lecturing others on $4 gasoline.I'm looking out for the people who... or try to speak for the people who actually... $4 of gasoline is going to break them financially.And that's why it's just so ridiculous and disgusting is to lecture people about that.

And you know what's crazy, Sagar, is I'm thinking back to the beginning of the Ukraine war after Russia invaded.Americans were more willing.Remember the polling?They were more willing to pay high gas prices for that because they saw it through a moral lens.They're like, this is a big country picking on this smaller country.This is illegal.

It's an invasion.We should stand on the side of Ukraine.We've talked plenty about how there was a lot more going on there.We'll talk more about that, actually, in the next block.But there was a moral sentiment behind it.And people actually were willing, like, OK, you know what, I can suck it up for a brief period of time.

I can pay more because this is a just cause.It's not that Americans are selfish.They're looking at this and they're going, this is not a just cause.We're bombing a little girls' school.Like, no, I'm not going to pay more at the gas pump for this.I'm completely unwilling.

And this is exactly the opposite of what you said you were going to do when you were running for president.and wanted our votes.So, yes, you know what?If it was some sort of truly just cause, I think Americans would be willing to suffer and pay more.But they're looking at this and going, Absolutely not.This is a horror show.

And why?And just even if you take his word, like, to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, guess what?We had the JCPOA, where you had them in a nuclear deal.Guess what?Before we started this whole disgusting war, we were in negotiations that would have led to an outcome where they were not going to pursue a nuclear weapon.Now they are much more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon, so we're paying $4 a gas, and we're more likely to have a nuclear -armed Iran.

That's what we're actually doing.

Yeah, let's just underscore the oil problem, which ultimately will be really what forces everybody's hand.Let's put this up here on the screen.This was huge news, which really was underreported in American media.So the top shipping insurance for said they would exclude vessels, quote, with any Saudi touchpoints from coverage, including ships traveling from under other flags that have made past calls at Saudi ports.This is titanic news in the oil market, because as we have shown people previously, it's not the straight of Hormuz that gets shut down or opened by America or by Iran to a certain extent.It's the insurance companies on whether they're going to be allowed to sell.

Remember, in the early days of the war, Trump actually She created this wartime insurance board, which would enable these ships to go through the Strait of Hormuz with an insurance contract, kind of an insurer as last resort.to very little oil from Saudi Arabia will be able to flow through.Why does this matter?Maps are actually important.If you're just listening, I'm going to do my best to describe this.Let's put this up here on the screen.

And this shows from the Wall Street Journal, Saudi Arabia's vast oil supplies now increasingly depend on a single exit.So as they show you, turmoil and straight -up hormones in the red seat means the kingdom and world energy markets are relying heavily on the Suez Canal.We've talked about this before, but I actually think this map does a really good job of just showing the various choke points for Saudi Arabia.They have the Yanbu Terminal.which they previously had been able to export oil through the Red Sea.That shut down.

They also had been able previously to export through the Strait of Hormuz.So, Hormuz was their number one lifeline.During the war, they shifted everything via the East -West Pipeline to Yanbu to get the oil out of the Red Sea.That's the blue line for those who are watching.Now, they have to rely on this alternative route to move oil through the Suez Canal, through the Mediterranean Sea, around the Cape of Good Hope in this alternative route to China and to the rest of the world or to various other This is a huge problem for two reasons.As you have said multiple times, Crystal, the very large, what is it, the VLCCs, like the very large, I forget exactly what it stands for, but that type of ship is not gonna move through the Suez Canal.

So already, that's a big problem.You also have this Suman pipeline, which is what they're able to move oil through, but that pipeline has a much more limited capacity.So already, you're down to basically a single point of failure.So both on their production side and on their export side, they are being squeezed.Actually, right as we were recording this show, Saudi Arabia just fired multiple interceptors after attacks from drones came via Iraqi militias, which are linked to Iran at their Aramco facility, which produces the vast majority of Saudi oil.So their economy is in a serious, serious problem.

Second to that is that you have seen now that the choke on Saudi Arabia was not able to be fully effective with Hormuz because they had that lifeline through the Red Sea.But with both now closed off, relying both on this pipeline or the Suez Canal, they really are in a situation where they're going to have to shut in the oil and take serious damage to their infrastructure on top of what's going on with these drone strikes that are happening literally right now as we speak.And that alone for what, I don't know, four or 5 % of the entire global oil supply, not to mention the UAE, Kuwait, and Qatar, all of which continue to either be shut down or dramatically lessened to where it was previously.Remember in the early days of the war, Kuwait did not export one single barrel of oil for 30 days.That's like three to 4 % alone of the entire global oil supply.

future attacks.were talking, a report fromReuters, Iran says Monday still in control of the strait and not seeking to resume peace talks with the U .S.S.after Trump halted a two -week bombing campaign that his top brass told him had run its course.So, just as we expected and predicted, the Iranians are saying, well, you might be interested in negotiations.

We have no reason to trust you, and we don't think that you're in a place where we're going to be able to achieve and secure what we have actually already secured on the battlefield.And one other update, as we were talking in the last block about the costs of this war and how casually our foreign policy elite are willing to send servicemembers to die and posture like, oh, they all signed up for this, the Pentagon has just updated their Accounting and you now have over 600 service members who have either been killed or wounded in the context of this war So that is a you know, that's a large number that we're already at Over 600 who have you know, most of those are alive.Thankfully.Most of them are wounded not killed but you know 624 since we launched this war in Iran on February 28th And that's what that's trying to do this standoff bombing campaign You can only imagine what those numbers would be if we're actually you know you know, sending in some sort of a ground force and taking greater risks than what we've done thus far.

I mean, traumatic brain injury, shrapnel, disfigurement, potential, I mean, there's so many long lists of people from the global war on terror who already had to live with this for a year.You can ask them, you know, was it worth it?Let's put B4 up here on the screen.This also, as I was saying earlier, there have been multiple now attacks on Saudi oil facilities from these either Iran, from the Houthis, or for now from the Iraqis.So over the weekend, this was on top of the Aramco strikes I just talked about.fired missiles and drones at two of their strategic oil facilities actually on the Red Sea, both at the Yombu facility but at another one.

Iran previously had had multiple strikes that were launchedat Saudi Arabia or at Saudi Arabian facilities.Many of these more recent ones, though, are coming from the Iraqis and from the Houthis.And so really what you can see is that this new front of the war arguably is, you know, the tipping point, you know, if you will, for a decision that has to be made on whether Trump is going to go full -on invasion or full -on fold.you know, with this, with the pipeline and with oil prices and all that, where they are, it may not necessarily be, you know, today, tomorrow, but the bleeding and the restriction of supply will, of course, as we said earlier, eventually catch up to reality.In the meantime, let's put B5 up here on the screen.

Gas is still $4 .11 a gallon.That's the national price average.The entire Acela Corridor sees, you know, pretty high gas prices and, you know, not to even mention the entire West Coast.Bathed in red there, California at $5 .64 a gallon.significant amount of their oil actually coming, remember, from the Middle East previously.So you could see that they're facing significant pressure, and this remains just a general nightmare for the American consumer.

Again, as you said, yeah, I mean, I have major problems with the we'll pay more for Putin's price hike and all that, but we've talked about this previously.At the very least, like, we didn't invade Ukraine, they did.It was an external shock.So Putin's price hike was fake, but, I mean, I can understand why people fell for it.There's nothing here.You know, Trump is one of the only wartime leaders in history, in American history, to not give a major address before the launching of a war as to why it was even necessary.

To this day, I don't think you could actually point to a single address that he's made and be like, here's what I'm doing, here's why I'm doing it, here's what it will cost, here's the cost to you, here's why it's worth it.I mean, straight comments here and there.Remember, the war was launched in the cover of darkness at 2 a .m.Eastern time with a bizarre video of Trump wearing a magazine hat telling Iranians to run.up and take back their country.

That's how the war was.And then he was silent for 48 hours, if I recall, didn't even make any public comments.That's the comparison, really, with all of the other wars.

based on reporting from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, among others, of what was going on behind the scenes, high on his own supply from Venezuela, fixated on his legacy, you know, as an old man, wants to leave his mark on the world, got persuaded that he could be the one that did what no other president was willing or able to do, very casually launches this war, thinking it's going to be over in a few days' time, and then has no plan B when that doesn't work.looked at this at.all could tell you that that wasn't going to work.And he had deluded himself into thinking that Iranian cities were on the verge of collapse.And now here we are, you know, however many months later, and this government is stronger in many ways than it was before we launched the war.So, just absolute idiocy.

arrogance, truly, blinded by arrogance all the way around.

Yep, absolutely.All right, let's get to Ukraine.