DSR Daily September 9: Iran and US Destroy Tankers as Global Oil Prices Skyrocket

The DSR Network

The DSR Daily discusses escalating tensions between Iran and the U.S., including attacks on oil tankers and retaliatory strikes near the Strait of Hormuz, which have driven

Key takeaways

• U.S.-Iran conflict over oil tankers is disrupting global shipping and driving Brent crude prices above $100 a barrel.
• Trump's tariff policies against Canada are seen as economically counterproductive and historically ill-advised, echoing failed protectionist models like Smoot-Hawley.

Main topics

• U.S.-Iran conflict and its impact on global oil markets
• Trump's trade war with Canada including bans on key exports

Notable quotes

"This is incompetent presidenting at a level we've never seen it before."

Conclusion

The episode warns that current geopolitical tensions, flawed trade policies, and

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:11) Hello and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkopf. I'm joined by Riley Fessler and Minna Stein. And if I seem highly energetic, it's because I'm pretending, because I was up late last night watching the US Open until 3.30 in the morning. Why? I don't know. You know, early onset dementia. I don't know. But it was pretty entertaining. Anyway, no sleep. So I'm going to rely on Minna and Riley. to infuse this conversation with energy. Minna, you start. Energy, give us some energy, help me get through the day. How are you going to do that? Speaker 1 (0:52) Well, we do have a story coming up that's got a sprinkling, a little flavor of dementia in it. But before we get there, we're going to cover some bigger stories. Speaker 2 (1:01) Okay. The Speaker 1 (1:02) White House announced a ban on Canadian dairy, alcoholic beverages, and select motorcycles taking effect September 29th. alongside blocking Canadian firms from major U.S. government contracts in an escalation of trade war. The move follows Canada's implementation of retaliatory tariffs on $20 billion worth of American imports after bilateral trade negotiations collapsed. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney vowed to reduce Canada's economic dependence on the U.S. by accelerating trade diversification efforts, including exploring deeper institutional ties with the European Union. Speaker 3 (1:42) Hi, Gavalt. You know, this is the craziest thing in the world. It's almost impossible to believe this is all going on. Because as we've said before, Speaker 1 (1:52) you Speaker 3 (1:52) know, Canada's our ally, key trading partner, place. When we looked out to the world and we knew the world was a problem in places, we knew there was at least one place we didn't have to worry about, and that was Canada. But because Donald Trump has got a... you know, kind of some demented crack in his many cracks in his dome about this thing. We now have to deal with this insanity. I thought it was quite telling. Mark Carney, the Prime Minister of Canada, who has handled this with great deftness, great, you know, poise and always, you know, addressing these issues from the perspective of somebody who understood what was going on. unlike our own president, who spouts utter nonsense all the time, he pointed out that Trump was taking this directly out of the playbook of William McKinley, who did the same thing in the 19th century. And the result, as we all know, because we've talked about it here before, was financial crisis in the United States. Trump and some of Trump's key advisors Think McKinley is a good model. You know, McKinley is a terrible model on this kind of stuff. McKinley was one of the ways, Smoot-Hawley in the 30s, another, that we learned this tariff approach just doesn't work. It just doesn't help us. But Trump doesn't read history. He doesn't know anything. Somebody said to him, hey, this is a good model. And it made him feel manly. You know, it gave him that little bit of shot of. that little, you know, to tariffs for Trump or that little blue pill, you know? I'm a man again. Problem is, terrible for Americans, terrible for Canadians, terrible for the global trading system. And is there a solution in sight anywhere? Of course not. Doesn't mean they won't try to come up with some made-up solution before the election in order to say, hey, we've solved another problem that they created. I do want to remind everybody that when Trump ran the first time, he said, I don't like this NAFTA deal. We have to renegotiate this NAFTA deal. It's a terrible deal. And so then what he did was he renegotiated the deal, made some not hugely significant changes, updated it in some ways, and came up with a new North American trade agreement. He did. The deal that he doesn't like is the one that he negotiated. So where does this leave us? Donald Trump is rejecting a deal that he negotiated and is using as his tactic to get to a new place techniques that have been proven to be disastrous for 150 years. You can't make it up. This is... Speaker 3 (5:03) incompetent presidenting at a level we've never seen it before. And we've had some pretty incompetent presidents. Okay, that one didn't energize me. Riley probably has something and he's going to, I'll be like, okay, let's go get it. Let's get the day. Speaker 2 (5:20) I'm reclaiming my title as the Iran war correspondent for the PSR network. Speaker 3 (5:24) That could last you well into your retirement years. Speaker 2 (5:27) Listen, it's a good business strategy for Speaker 3 (5:29) me Speaker 2 (5:29) personally. Speaker 2 (5:32) In the largest escalation of attacks on shipping since the war began, the U.S. destroyed five Iranian oil tankers after attempted missile strikes on its warships, prompting Iran to retaliate by attacking 10 vessels near the Strait of Hormuz and targeting a U.S. base in Jordan. Well, Speaker 3 (5:47) that couldn't have