Izabella Kaminska

US Fuels Chaos to Cripple China AI, Bind Europe

Really recommend this interview between @freddiesayers and energy expert @HelenHet20 where Helen lays out why markets may be wrong in assuming things will return to normal once Iran is neutralised. The chaos may be the strategy. And whichever way you look it's bad for Europe, which is exposed as incapable of becoming strategically autonomous. The key points are: 1. The US intentionally benefits from chaos in the Strait of Hormuz because China heavily relies on Persian Gulf oil imports, whereas the US is largely self-sufficient. 2. Artificial intelligence development is incredibly electricity-intensive. By degrading China's energy security, the US directly undermines its primary competitor's ability to succeed in the global AI race. 3. The strategy deliberately aims to make European nations heavily reliant on American liquefied natural gas (LNG) rather than Middle Eastern sources, effectively undermining Europe's push for strategic autonomy and tying them closer to the United States. 4. The real disruption relates to Western shipping insurance companies, like Lloyd's of London, refusing to insure transit through the Persian Gulf after a US attack on an Iranian ship. Although the Trump administration claimed it would step in to provide insurance and military convoys to ease the market, it has taken no meaningful action to do so. Consequently, ships bound for China are forced to operate without Western insurance. 5. The US agenda is to leave Europe to fend for itself in the region since it has little strategic interest in securing the Red Sea or the Suez Canal, as almost none of its own hydrocarbon or trade imports rely on that route. 6. Europe's leaders are trapped: they do not want to rely on an antagonistic Trump administration, they cannot rely on Russia, and they currently lack the unified military power to secure their own energy supply routes. https://t.co/QJqNPaFH9f