Trump’s investment demand is a fee by another name. 
Please note Trump says he’s reversing course on Strait of Hormuz fees because Gulf states will invest in U.S.
The president explained his thinking in backing away from a 20% toll on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz, saying he was called by “kings and emirs” and other leaders who suggested an alternate arrangement.
“They said we’d love to do it a different way. We’d love to invest in the United States with billions and billions of dollars,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
A Fee by Any Other Name
For starters, a fee by any other name is a fee.
Second. why would Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, China, or any other nation want to be forced to build in the US for protection that the US cannot even provide?
Yesterday’s Message
Truth Social: The Hormuz Strait is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran. We are reinstating the THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving. All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait. The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” but as such, and as a matter of FAIRNESS, will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped, for any and all costs necessary to do the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World. The process and formation will begin immediately. Thank you for your attention to this matter! President DONALD J. TRUMP
Jul 13, 2026, 8:16 AM
Today, it’s forced investment. Lovely.
Lie of the Day – Oil Is Flowing
Oil is flowing like never before, thanks to the awesome Power of the United States Military. A special salute to Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Dan Caine, and Commander of the United States Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper. Because of them, and all members of the Most Powerful Military anywhere in the World, BY FAR, the Strait of Hormuz is open to ALL Ship traffic except for Iran — and that is because of their lying, violent, malicious leadership, which is taking them down the path of TOTAL DESTRUCTION. We will therefore have a FULL Blockade, but only on Ships coming to and from Iranian ports, or carrying anything have to do with Iranian cargo. Based on highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership, I have decided to replace the 20% United States Reimbursement Fee with Trade and Investment Deals that the various Gulf States will be making into the United States. Those Investments will be MASSIVE but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future. As everyone is aware, we have the largest Dollar Investment into the United States, of any Country in History, but these new Investments will make that Number even larger, and we will see Factories, Plants, and Equipment pour into the United States at Historic levels, which will create additional millions of High Paying AMERICAN Jobs! America is WINNING again, winning like never before. The days of Iran killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 52,000 protestors, are OVER and, most importantly, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP
Jul 14, 2026, 9:04 AM
Who Believes This Nonsense?
Is Trump delusional enough to believe what he is saying?
Are any Trump supporters delusional enough to believe what he is saying?
How Many Ships Passed Through the Strait Today?
Around 19 to 34 commercial ships passed through the Strait of Hormuz, according to maritime intelligence data from firms like Windward and Kpler. This is a sharp decline from the normal pre-conflict daily average of well over 100 vessels, driven by renewed hostilities, tit-for-tat attacks, and a reinstated U.S. blockade.
Protection? What Protection?
16 Cents More for Diesel Tomorrow
Protection Yet Again
So, if these ships are paying Iran for passage, and not the US, who ten is in control of the strait?
And what the hell is Trump going to do about it (other than lie)?
What’s better?
A trillion dollars of goods export sales or a trillion dollars invested by a foreign nation.
I think foreign investments mean profit (money) leaves the country as an exchange for more than widgets.
And we know those investments will be steered into someone’s pockets.
Translation, they’ll recycle their money into and out of $TRUMP at Liberty Financial so that the Supreme Pedophile may collect his 20% in fees.
Things are going swimmingly.
A wondrous thing about investment rackets is the managers can allocate dividends to their friends and the losses to everyone else. Ask Hillary, she knows.
It’s still amazing that Trump cannot grasp that national account identities imply that he is talking complete nonsense. If the Gulf states invest $1 trillion in the US, and this money doesn’t flow out of the US again, the US current account (trade) deficit has to go up by that $1trillion, which, according to Trump, would be a national security disaster.
To even suggest that these things he says are serious is missing the point. He will say anything that will prop up the stock markets at this point. He is absolutely desperate. He knows without a deal, the world economy will suffer greatly, and that he can manipulate ANY deal into market support. But why would Iran cut yet another deal with Trump when both sides know he has no intention of complying with the deal?
Even without a deal he has been able to con people into thinking negotiations for a deal are going well and that a deal is imminent. But of course Iran is being very clear there will be no more negotiations with a country that doesn’t honor its agreements. So not Trump is threatening again to take out Iranian infrastructure if Iran doesn’t negotiate, starting with power plants and bridges. It is all spiraling out of control.
Maybe President Trump will have to undo the Israeli influence on his government?
TACO TUESDAY !!!
“Back like never before…no one has seen Taco’s like this before me…”
This is mafia level extortion.
Nobody called him. He made it up. No one will pay 20%, no one will invest.
And the number of citizens killed… amazing how it continues to go up. At 52,000 now. Uh huh. Riiiiight.
Iran planned on only a fixed $1M. Much less.
Expect Trump to be increasingly desperate with each day that goes by. The world economy car he is driving is about to go over a cliff and smash into the rocks below. The options remain the same: withdraw and admit defeat, or send the marines in and fight another Vietnam war. Either way his legacy is that of a Loser. He will almost certainly be impeached next year.
There are other options but they are pretty horrendous to consider at this point (bio weapons like small pox or nuclear weapons).
However as Papa Dave notes, SPRs and other reserves are being drawn down further and at some point they will run dry. At that point the shite will really hit the fan world wide potentially leading to massive riots in many Western countries (not to mention 3rd world places first) if people can’t drive to work and food shortages really start. If it gets to that point some of those horrendous options are going to look a lot more palatable.
“There are other options but they are pretty horrendous to consider at this point (bio weapons like small pox or nuclear weapons).”
Americans are sick mottherfuckkers.
Already tried that.
Remember the chemical weapons used by Saddam?
Remember Covid? (China & Iran were the first outbreaks)
Saddams chemical weapons were childs play.
Small Pox released in multiple places would likely kill 30-50 million people in a few weeks time. Even though there is a known vax, there would not be time to make and administer that many doses. What happened with Covid was a blueprint on how it shuts down entire populations and countries.
Something is flowing like never before… but it’s much more brown and messy than oil. POTUS should get in on the Depends group discount on adult diapers negotiated by Mitch McConnell.
Can anybody point to any significant foreign investment by Middle East in US that DJT has been crowing about for 2 years? Actual plants getting built, hiring Americans, paying taxes? All growth in US is data center related, funded by shareholders and now debt of the Mag7. Where is that new Aramco refinery or that new Emirates concourse at JFK? Instead, they simply buy our stocks and bonds because our liquid, transparent, and powerful companies and markets give them the best return for the least risk. Sorry, but that’s not “investing” in the US, that’s trading and taking advantage of all that is good about US markets. First sign of trouble, they’re selling.
These are results for if picking the best trump lie each day, how many lies are to be considered each day, on average?
AI Overview
On average, you would need to consider 21 lies per day. This historical daily average is based on data from The Washington Post Fact Checker, which documented 30,573 false or misleading statements made during his first presidential term. The number of lies to consider each day varied depending on the year:
Other than lies? Nothing in the works except for some other lies. Many others.
Give it another 5 minutes, and see what else his stable mind tosses up. I’m sure insurance underwriters worldwide are enjoying starting all over again 3 times per week. This must trickle down to the rest of us sooner or later.
meanwhile: What the Ukrainians are doing is they’re attacking Russia’s wheat production, their ability to move large numbers of wheat goods of wheat to the international market. And then if you add that with the ongoing agricultural shutdown because of the Strait of Hormuz, we are talking about global famine conditions happening in real time and we’re heading into it right now.
This is a very very precarious situation especially if the Houthis initiate their blockades of the Bab el-Mandeb and the Red Sea and by extension they will then have the ability,h because they’ll cut off the southern entryway they’ll have the ability to strangle the Suez Canal. So we’re talking about a total shutdown of a massive chunk of waterways that both energy and food stuffs has to use daily.
I’m actually surprised the Houthis have not moved to close off the Bab el-Mandeb strait already. Are the Saudis really able to stop them from doing that?
More threats being made to close the Bab el-Mandeb strait
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2026/07/15/772304/how-bab-mandeb-closure-could-send-oil-200-trigger-global-economic-shock
As I recall it, we (the West, in the person of Saudi Arabia and the U.S.A.) were using famine and cholera against the Houthis a few years ago. They didn’t manage to close their strait then. Why do you think they can do so now?
And Ukraine has been crippling Russian refineries leading to shortages of fuel within Russia, and a Russian export ban on diesel. As well as attacking over 100 Russian ships in 10 days.
“Ukraine” has done none of this. This is a NATO production.
Not crippled either.
I certainly did not think Trump would follow through on his 20% fee. Mostly because no one would be willing to pay that much and traffic would halt. As expected, Trump just made up another story so we would forget about the ridiculous 20% fee.
Iran hit three tankers in the last 24 hours that were under US “protection “. Two of those were part of a UAE shuttle fleet (Mombasa B and Al Bahyah) that made repeated short runs in and out of the gulf to then transfer their oil to tankers outside the strait because those ships were unwilling to enter. The ships outside would then complete the delivery.
This shuttle fleet worked well for a few weeks. These two ships each had made 4 previous runs in and out. Iran has now decided to put a stop to these shuttles.
With the US returning to a blockade on Iranian ships, and Iran putting an end to the shuttles, we are back to a real crimp on production and shipments. As such, oil prices are rising again. However, this time we are running out of reserves to make up the difference. If this goes on for the rest of July, we “may” see those $150 oil prices that the oil execs warned us about.
Hormuz on ‘severe’ alert as insurance costs soar and tanker traffic dries up
https://www.newarab.com/news/hormuz-strait-severe-alert-insurance-costs-soar
Iran is betting that the increased oil pricing and the dwindling oil reserves US will force the US to “cry uncle” soon and come to a settlement. Trump’s frequent TACOs and past desperation to have an MoU in place reinforced the Iranian perception that the US position is weak.
Hormuz is great leverage for Iran. Leverage that they don’t plan to ever give up.
The United States will simply go nuclear instead.
Today marks the 4 week anniversary of Trump stating we’d run out of oil in 4 weeks. So I guess the question now is how much time did he buy with the mou…
SPR falls below Biden era minimum:
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Crude-Oil-Gasoline-Inventories-Still-Falling.html
Biden drew it down to 346 mb. He later added 59 mb back until congress refused to give him any more money to continue adding.
The operational minimum level is supposedly somewhere between 250 and 300 mb. We may find out soon how low it can go.
Interesting note about the Biden era drawdown of the SPR–it was actually a bipartisan effort. About 80 million barrels were drawn down and sold under the Biden administartion to fulfill legislative mandates from the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 and the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 enacted during the first Trump term. These laws mandated that 5 years in the future oil would be sold from the SPR. Why? So that income from the oil sales could be used to reduce the future deficit impacts of these two laws. Congress was treating the SPR as a piggybank. Our politicians of both parties have been playing games with the SPR for years now.
Correct. Both congress and presidents from each party have been using the SPR for political purposes. One reason for this was because of the US shale boom which increased our oil production from 4 mbpd to 13 mbpd. This production made the SPR less important and politically expendable.
“Are any Trump supporters delusional enough to believe what he is saying?” absolutely.The ones who were committed are no less now.
but yeah, that post is so delusional it’s barely funny anymore. yeah, they’ll make billions in investment sin the US (translation, they’ll bribe Trump, if they do anything).
factories, plants and jobs are coming to the U.S. yay!
Happy Tuesday!
Every day is Tuesday. He’s cycling faster and faster. I think today Trump said they nuked Iran, past tense. Nobody’s at the wheelhouse.
I bet they are changing his diapers more often every day. Imagine going into the Oval Office to find the Chief Pedophile of the United States sitting in his own excrement. Meanwhile everyone acts like this brain dead lunatic is still in control. Hell the demented idiot can’t even control his bowels!