“Benefits Of Being UNPREDICTABLE” - Hormuz Blockade SPARKS Trump’s BLAST On NATO

Added: 2026-05-05

[00:00:00]NATO allies refused to join Trump on the Iranians port blockade. Now this is big news because at first it was like it's Spain well you know the Spain president he's a socialist even he says his family progressive so hey I want to make you work with America but you guys can't come and land over here and he says look we don't need you we're going to do it by ourselves or not. Then it was Starmer I don't want to be a part of this. Now it's the whole NATO allies refused to join Trump's Iranian port blockade.

[00:00:28]According to Reuters, allies said on Monday they would not get involved in US President's Trump's plan to blockade Iranian ports, proposing to intervene only once fighting ends in a move likely to anger Trump and increase strains in the alliance. Trump said the US military would eliminate any Iranian ships that came near the blockade that began on Monday after the weekend talks failed to reach an agreement to end the six-week conflict with Iran. Trump initially said the US would work with other countries to block ships passing through the straight of Hormuse, but the US military later specified that the blockade would only apply to ships going to or from Iranian ports. Since the war started February 28, Iran has largely blocked the waterway for all ships. Uh but its own uh it has been sinking seeking to make its control of straight permanent and possibly collect levies from ships that use it. The blockade will begin shortly. Other countries will be involved with the blockade. Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Sunday, but NATO allies, including Britain and France, have said they would not be drawn into the conflict. So, he did say they will. They're not so far. Tom, what do we know about? Especially now that crude oil is at what, 9137. The market's reacting somewhat positively. S&P at 7,000. So, Wall Street, like you said earlier, is doing good. Main Street's maybe taking a hit, but walk us through what you think's going on here with the blockade.

[00:01:46]>> So, there's a lot of gamesmanship going on in the on the in the world. So right now Britain and France have a problem and I dove into this. Mcronone and Starmer have large Muslim populations.

[00:01:58]You know, you know, 8 10 12 15% that's a population you have to deal with and they are a very loud population. And so publicly they're saying we will not join the blockade. Well, what does that mean?

[00:02:10]I will not put my ships next to your ships, so I won't join the blockade. But what was interesting, Britain and France through NATO said, "We are working on an initiative to open the straight." Pat, that's what they said. You know what that initiative is?

[00:02:24]>> Negotiating behind the scenes with the United States.

[00:02:27]>> So, we won't join the blockade like put our boats out there. And they say that for the headlines in their own countries, but behind the scenes, they are working with us trying to negotiate and find a way out of it. And it's because they have to speak out of both sides of their mouth because they're there. What that is doing is that's upsetting Trump because if you're not with me, you're against me. Tremendously upsetting him. And it's also kind of undermining the historical importance of NATO. I mean, looking back and asking, hey, do we still need this? This was created at a time where we had a cold war. We thought there was a bunch of missiles pointing at us, pointing back.

[00:03:03]Reagan put Persing missiles in Germany, which caused the Russians to flip out.

[00:03:07]But that was all part of the NATO chess game. And a lot of people are asking, you know, what does NATO do and what are what are they necessary for? And Trump is playing that card in the middle of it. Okay, you're not with me. You're against me. Boom. Maybe I'll leave NATO.

[00:03:21]But make no mistake, Britain and France are have a two-faced uh thing going on here, public and private.

[00:03:28]>> Len, where do you stand with this?

[00:03:30]>> Uh, so I think a lot of it is symbolic and it's obviously political in the sense that no one really doubts the US Navy can do this blockade indefinitely if they want to. There's no world where US Navy has trouble stopping ships from going through. Obviously, the US Navy's limited in terms of getting the straight open because of all the asymmet as asymmetric aspects to it, but actually blocking it is fairly simple for the US Navy to do. So, trying to get NATO involved is more of that symbolic coalition effort rather than because the US actually needs their ships in any material way. And so their refusal doesn't of course uh impair the US's ability to keep the straight closed, but it does signal like like Todd mentioned all the domestic political aspects they're dealing with. And it does ongoing kind of show the uh the weakening of NATO over time, which is relevant. And it you know, it's increasing multiple the world. Uh and you know, we we have fractures in our own backyard, let alone the world conflict.

[00:04:17]>> Rob, can you run a poll? And I want the poll uh to be what's more likely to happen. US leaves NATO, NATO supports US versus Iran and versus neither. Okay, just run that same poll on the podcast. Let's see what happens with it. Here's JD Vance when he's talking to Brett Bear and Brett Bear's asking a question to see where he stands because we remember JD Vance was a non-interventionist. It's kind of like why are they sending him to negotiate?

[00:04:44]You know, I is it is it intentional?

[00:04:46]Because if you send Rubio, you know where Rubio stands.

[00:04:49]>> Rubio and Wickoff, we know what they've been doing.

[00:04:51]>> That's right. So, do you send JD to kind of get him to be a bought in and say, "I didn't know these people are this extreme." So, here's what JD had to say to uh Brett Barry yesterday >> as soon as it can. Um it's being reported that you had real skepticism about this at the beginning uh and that you expressed that to the president. Is that true? Well, Brett, you know, I give my advice to the president of the United States and we all do and I expect that when I give advice to the president of the United States that it's going to be private because the president should rely on his senior adviserss without them run then running to the media. What I will say, Brett, is that I 100% agree with the president on the fact that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. I've seen that just in the negotiation that we've had over the last couple of days that these are tough negotiators, but they're they're fundamentally the kinds of people where them having a nuclear weapon would impose terrible costs on the entire world. If they're willing to engage in economic terrorism on the entire world, what would it mean? What leverage would they have if they had a nuclear bomb in Thrron? That's not an outcome that is acceptable to us or really should be acceptable to anybody.

[00:05:59]So, I 100% support the president's goals here to keep nuclear weapons, to keep the worst weapons of war out of the hands of the Iranians.

[00:06:07]>> Mr. What do you think about what he said?

[00:06:10]>> Um, yeah. I mean, I he's saying the right things. And, uh, can I hit NATO real quick, though? I mean, I have we all lost sight of the fact that UK and France wouldn't be a country if it wasn't for America. And I mean with the thing uh with NATO, what's what's a positive thing that NATO has done or a positive impact NATO's had in the last 30 years? I mean nobody remembers that Russia wanted to be part of NATO and Bill Clinton rejected that.

[00:06:33]>> Bill Clinton didn't reject that. No, Bill Clinton said no problem. He called somebody >> and then he called back and said not now. So wasn't he rejected? I don't know if I put that on Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was a gamer that he wanted to do it. Somebody he called said no. And a lot of people speculate who it is, but we don't know who that was.

[00:06:54]>> That's a good point. And um I mean the defense contractors led the committee to expand NATO. So I mean the way I always see NATO is that we needed something to throw money at after the Cold War ended, right? Because we just threw all the military money at NATO. And like the audacity of these guys, we have we give them all these weapons. We have all of our military troops in their bases there and like the whole point is to deter Russia from aggression. But I would say that our expansion of NATO is what um encouraged Russia to go into Ukraine. So yeah, I think we should pull out of NATO ASAP. Especially >> you think we should pull out >> 100%. What's a positive thing that NATO's done?

[00:07:24]>> They did a hell of a job at Bosnia Hergo Zavina, didn't they? Wow. They got in there. Stop that. Not that was NATO's back.

[00:07:32]>> So So if you're saying that, that means you're agreeing with them that we should leave NATO.

[00:07:36]>> I I'm not saying we should leave NATO, but I'm saying you asked the question, what have they done in the last? And I'm like, >> he asked the question. I'm just wonder >> I'm making the point. Yeah, they've done a terrible job. Like they let that go on in Bosnia until what? Till I think it was Clinton finally agreed to drop tomahawks on enemy positions to see if they could break the back of the rebel general that was committing the the genocide in the fields.

[00:07:58]>> What do you think?

[00:07:59]>> Well, my focus is on finance and tech more than more than geopolitics. Um, I'm not don't really have a firm opinion on that topic other than I think that years ago it made sense to pressure NATO to put at least 2% of their GDP into the military basically meeting all their ends of the bargain. Uh, because for a long time obviously the US is like the bulk of NATO. Uh, so the rest of NATO is kind of that longer tail of other support compared to the US which is almost all of it. Um, at this point there's there's obvious fractures. Um, I I wouldn't necessarily support going out of it because that's, you know, it's kind of a temporary decision that can have permanent ramifications, but I'm certainly no expert on, you know, >> well, maybe think maybe think about it from the economic side because you you watch how the market reacts to certain things, right? How how would the market react if all of a sudden say things are not going the right way. Say the Thursday negotiation gets nasty and behind closed doors the president's not happy with the way NATO's supporting him. Hypothetically he announces because you know he's capable of announcing anything. He announces we're out. How do you think the market reacts?

[00:08:57]>> Uh my guess would be more muted than one might think. I mean I I think you know the market could have a sell off that day. I don't think would be particularly catastrophic because when the market says okay what does this mean over the next let alone weeks what does this mean over years are we worried about any of those NATO members getting attacked more than they might otherwise especially if the rest of NATO stays intact so some of the smaller members is still defended by some of the bigger membersh >> you know I mean multiple of them are nuclear powers um so I I don't think anyone would would seriously increase worry about the safety of NATO countries just because the US was out in any sort of multi-year time frame obviously that has long-term implications for deterioration between the US and and Europe in particular. But probably the market would just look through that kind of like how it's been surprisingly resilient looking through all the the current energy shortages.

[00:09:41]>> Yeah, it's it's interesting you're saying that because I don't know if you you guys saw that or not. Zillinsky the other day said in a press conference he's been kind of quiet. He says UK should come back into NATO.

[00:09:50]>> I don't know if you saw that or not, Tom. Did you see that with Zalinsky saying, "Hey, UK should come back and you should rejoin." Is that it? We don't want NATO. I think the EU and NATO can uh partner also military. I don't know if this is it or not, but it was one of the ones where he's asking for UK to come back in >> and rejoin NATO. I mean, not rejoin NATO, EU. My apologies. It's EU, not NATO.

[00:10:12]>> You know what he's looking for? He's looking for a pocket.

[00:10:13]>> Of course he is. Yeah, of course he is with >> uh uh with that taking place. But yeah, I I don't know. I I wonder do you how likely it is that Trump is capable of using that card to say we're pulling out, Tom? I give you a percentage because right now the poll we ran, here's what the poll looks like. 3,000 votes, five minutes, what's more likely to happen. 51% say the US leaves NATO.

[00:10:39]>> That's the listeners. And we have some, our listeners are business owners. They these are people that, you know, run businesses, you know, are watching the market to see what's going on. 51% thinks US leaves NATO. 15% think NATO will support US versus Iran. 34% say neither. Tom, do you agree with them?

[00:10:58]>> Yeah, I think it's 50/50 because look at what will happen. We have bases in the Philippines. We have bases in Japan. We have bases everywhere. We would still have bases in Germany. We still have bases in the UK on the south uh coast of UK where we launch all the the B1 bombers from. All of that we would still have. So we would have regional defense alliances. So you leave NATO as a think as a group at the middle pat, but we would still have all those bases and all of our military presence over there and if something happened in Germany, we're going to be there to back them up. So I think it's 50/50 to leave NATO, but it would not change our deployment of resources in each country the same way we've got resources deployed all around the world.

[00:11:41]>> You know what it would change? it would change the fact that none of those countries have invested in their militaries in a big way since NATO um got put in place because like they've all been hollowed out. They just rely on us that we'll have their back if they ever needed us. So, you know, they they've gotten fat and happy and casual and they would immediately stop that I think if we pulled out of it because I mean and you know if we don't have to pull off of it but that's our leverage.

[00:12:02]You know, if we want them to do something, we have all the means at our disposal to encourage them to >> the benefit. This is the benefit of having an unpredictable leader. That's also predictable. That's the benefit of it. He keeps everybody on their toes and they don't know what's going to be happening. By the way, a couple clips, Rob, if you want to play it. One of them is the clip where the president says he won't let Iran uh blackmail and extort the world by shutting down the strait.

[00:12:27]If you can play this clip, >> we can't let a country blackmail or extort uh the world because that's what they're doing. They're really blackmailing the world. We're not going to let that happen. And you know the amazing thing is um we don't can you believe this? We don't use this trade. We don't need this trade. We have our own oil and gas much more than we need. We have more oil and gas than Saudi Arabia. Think of this. We produce more Saudi Arabia and add Russia to it. Substantially more. And by next year we'll have double that amount.

[00:13:01]>> So we don't need it. The world needs it.

[00:13:04]And many ships are heading to our country right now as we speak to load up with the best >> really. I guess you could say somebody said the best and sweetest. I don't know exactly what sweet is but when it relates to oil that's a good thing.

[00:13:19]>> Uh but they're coming to our country right now. There are many boats coming to our country. Now it could very well be this is going to be settled before that.

[00:13:26]>> Now you can pause this right here. go to the clip about what this is costing Iran on a daily basis and how long they can afford for this to happen. Whether it's water, you know, their revenue coming in. This right here is a phenomenal clip by Jesse. Go ahead, Rob.

[00:13:40]>> Iranian oil blockade is probably the knockout punch. The Iranians are trying to outlast us. The longer the war goes on, the longer their regime can hold off a revolution. But their economy is experiencing a crippling depression.

[00:13:54]This blockade's costing the regime almost $400 million a day. That's $13 billion a month. Plus, the Iranians can only store oil for about 2 weeks before they have to start shutting off wells.

[00:14:08]The Iranians can't outlast us. The world's turning to us for energy. Over 120 empty oil tankers are on their way to the Gulf of America.

[00:14:18]>> Many ships are heading to our country right now.

[00:14:21]If you want to go a little bit further out to see when Jesse comes back, >> let him keep going. Okay, keep playing it. Keep playing it with Jesse.

[00:14:29]>> And petrochemical industries have been wiped out without oil revenue. All they can sell are pistachios to Pakistanis.

[00:14:35]>> It could get worse. The president's still weighing limited air strikes, saying a number of additional targets are very easy to hit. The Iranians are losing their cards here. And Vance, who just spent 20 hours negotiating with them, says that we're in the driver's seat.

[00:14:51]>> Tom, I economically speaking, we're in the driver's seat. But if if only if it's a rational uh Iran leader negotiating on the other side, when you have irrational leaders that just want to wait you out, um then anything that you would do for them, I mean, look at the rebuilding of Japan after World War II. Look at the rebuilding of South Vietnam. And look at all that that happened. you you don't want these guys to be rebuilding, you know, the the weaponry and the and what they do. And so, yeah, it's hitting them and it's hitting them hard. Uh, and yes, you've got this and yes, drill baby drill and the renewed relationship with um Venezuela and all that Venezuela oil coming out and benefiting the the the people of Venezuela hopefully more and more next year than this year. That's all good, you know, but I I look at it, yeah, it is. Are they going to break?

[00:15:43]Are they going to negotiate? Are they going to give up the nuclear option? And so a rational player would, but you have to remember these are irrational players that would allow their own people, they'd allow 90% of their own people to die before they give up the card because it's a theocratic, it's a suicidal theocracy that believes in that endgame.

[00:16:05]And so in that way, they're not a rational actor. So Lind, I'll give you this last thoughts on here and I know it's more uh you're more economy than some like this, but have you thought about what would be an ideal situation where the market's going to sit there and Trump comes out the winner? What could happen where Trump comes out the winner in this issue with Iran?

[00:16:25]>> I can certainly see an agreement like years ago where Iran agrees to kind of defer any sort of nuclear program and has observers in in exchange for letting off the attacks and things like that.

[00:16:35]that that's kind of the a possibility here. There's also just I mean they can declare themselves a winner, the US can declare themselves a winner and kind of back out and you know see how the optics go. I think you know with that clip we saw there there's some simplification of talking points because even though the US does produce a lot of oil and gas uh it's not as though we have just a bunch of spare capacity sitting around. We we we export a lot, we import a lot. Not all oil is the same because it has to be matched at certain types of refineries.

[00:17:02]Uh and so we I mean we've seen pretty clearly obviously gasoline prices and other energy prices have spiked here in the US just like many other parts of the world. We're not you know we're not the most vulnerable in the world. That's mostly going to be the uh the the poor per capita developing developing countries that have to import a lot and are now being outbid by all the wealthy nations in the east and and and elsewhere. Um but we are impacted and you know right now there's obviously Iran's on a clock. I mean they you know they they've hyperinflated not for the first time. They've got severe uh economic issues. They've got all sorts of issues. Um, you know, but as Tom point out, they're they're ideological more more so than they're pragmatic. Um, the US is also on a I mean a less severe ticking clock, but I mean just politically speaking, there's the midterms coming up right now. Consumer sentiment is a record low, lower than 2008, lower than the peak of COVID, lower than the late '7s. Those were kind of all other low points. We hit new lows. Uh, and that's partially because I mean gasoline prices at the pump are up.

[00:17:53]And then even things we don't see directly, all the transportation costs.

[00:17:56]I mean you mentioned $7 Dorito bags that part of that I mean going forward all all these things that have to move around the country that's impacted by transportation costs >> $5 diesel.

[00:18:06]>> Yeah, exactly. Uh and so the US consumer is being squeezed. Uh and then that of course has you know the polls are already shifting pretty greatly toward the midterms. Uh so I think that the Trump administration has an incentive to try to get this wrapped up sooner rather than later. Uh, and then it's it's a force of wills between obviously, you know, the the average Iranian is a lot more impacted than the average American here. Um, but they are a very very resilient ideological type regime there.

[00:18:30]Way way more than Venezuela.

[00:18:32]>> There's there's no question about it.

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