A pump jack is nodding its slow metronome over the dust somewhere outside of Midland, Texas, as it has done for decades. It has nothing to do with geopolitical leverage. However, in the months since the Strait of Hormuz closed, that silent, unsightly machine has evolved into something more like a strategic asset than it has been in a decade. Walking through these oil patches gives the impression that America stumbled into a position of power it didn’t quite earn and isn’t sure how to use.
A portion of the story is revealed by the numbers. GDP continues to rise. Contrary to most predictions, the number of jobs added in March was the highest in two years. Even after gasoline surpassed four-year highs, retail sales remained stable. According to one CNN analyst, the $31 trillion US economy is a beast, and beasts don’t back down easily. Investors appear to think that whatever harm the war in Iran is causing is happening to someone else.
Increasingly, that someone else is everyone else. Liquefied natural gas that was previously purchased inexpensively from pipelines is now being paid for by Europe. In an attempt to secure supply contracts at prices that would have seemed ridiculous a year ago, South Korea and Japan are racing. At a time when its real estate sector is least able to withstand the shock, China is witnessing its energy bill skyrocket. It is brutally asymmetrical. Nearly no other industrial power can claim that America exports slightly more energy than it imports. That tiny accounting discrepancy turned into the difference between discomfort and a crisis when the strait closed.
The White House may be more aware of this than it admits. At first, Trump’s now-famous March 31 statement, “Go get your own oil!” sounded like bluster, the kind of thing someone says into a microphone before giving it much thought. However, thirty years prior, George H.W. Bush had stood in front of a different camera and declared that America would take action because such a vital resource could not be left in the hands of ruthless people. It’s a remarkable contrast. To protect international oil flows, one president dispatched 500,000 soldiers. The other, aware that his shale producers are quietly becoming wealthy, shrugs and watches as Brent’s price rises.
That shrug seems a little awkward. because the strength isn’t as pure as it appears. Strangely, American refineries still require imported crude—the sour, heavy material that their facilities were designed to process—so “energy independence” is more of an accounting gimmick than a practical reality. The conflict-related helium shortages are beginning to affect chip manufacturing, which adds complexity to the AI narrative Wall Street continues to tell itself. Finally, the wage data has shown that, for the first time since 2023, inflation has reduced the average salary. Americans with lower incomes are using their savings to purchase the same groceries. Meanwhile, their bosses’ bosses are using their raises to cover increases in gas prices seventeen times over. One nation, two economies.
The money war is the deeper game that Alex de Waal of the World Peace Foundation has been writing about. Iran joined the BRICS in 2014 in part to avoid the dollar’s extensive influence. To put it mildly, the Trump administration has not been subtle in its response to that bloc. One interpretation of the Iran War is the dollar reasserting itself through force, serving as a reminder that the global financial plumbing still passes through New York, that Treasury still sets the terms, and that sanctions still have an impact. The question that no one in Washington seems eager to address is whether that reassertion is sustainable or merely delays a reckoning.
It’s difficult not to feel that dominance based on the suffering of others has a limited lifespan as you watch this play out. The pump jack continues to nod. The strait remains closed. And for the time being, the asymmetry persists.