The US military blockaded Iran's entire coastline, effectively an act of war under international law. Right after, Trump declared himself 'Guardian of the Hormuz Strait' and floated a 20% fee on all cargo passing through, then dropped it within a day. Meru shows with simple math why the fee was never real: a supertanker carries $160M of crude, so the US fee would be $32M, versus roughly $2M in tolls to Iran. Nobody pays a toll sixteen times more expensive than what they'd pay the enemy. So why float it? Meru's read: it's a negotiating card. Trump labels each strike a 'skirmish' rather than war, hits in controlled bursts, and throws out absurd demands only to withdraw them, all to push Iran back to the table. And the oil price rising along the way isn't a bad side bet for the world's largest oil producer.
Why it matters · Energy is the input cost of the AI buildout. Hormuz risk is now a line item in every datacenter power model.