Is America intentionally stretching out the conflict to force Europe and Asia to get their crude oil from North America instead?
u/Psilonemo ·
Reddit — r/StockMarket
· April 08, 2026 at 07:08
· ⬆ 26 pts
· 💬 26 comments
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Hello. I am South Korean.
There are really, really bad rumors spreading here saying that the petroleum-derivative supply chain will go dry by June, with certain products already going out of inventory by may. I work in real estate development and people up top are freaking out because apparently our construction contractors already told us that certain petroleum derivatives are essential for construction and they've gone dry already/suppliers have begun witholding their supplies because of uncertainty.
It seems to me like if this de facto blockade continues for another month, the global economy won't be able to walk this off with a bruise but suffer a serious fracture. Countries that are net oil importing and industrial export reliant like Japan, Korea, China.. etc are going to be forced to rely on alternative providers in a hurry. In Europe this would be Norway and Russia all over again. And for us Asians it would have to be Canada, Venezuela, and the US if it's light crude. For us Koreans we rely on heavy crude a lot so... I don't know what this means for us.
There is talk going around that Trump might intentionally be prolonging this conflict and essentially casting a smokescreen/diversion with his insane tweets to troll the market and the world on purpose - to render the situation so uncertain and chaotic that the world will be forced to abandon the prospect of a resumed peace in the strait of hormuz and just reroute their energy imports from North American providers. This kind of reminds me of Nixon's Madman Theory in geopolitics.
If this is the case, then the most likely scenario is that Trump will simply continue throwing concussive/contradictive nonsense and smoke with his tweets, crying wolf and selling a narrative that he will simply chicken out all the way and abandon the campaign in defeat... only to flip the script and strike again in serious escalation when nobody expects it to throw everybody off and make the whole world abandon hope once and for all. This would force a country like South Korea (my country) to seek an immediate alternative to meet our crude oil needs. Otherwise, it would halt our economy.
Covid 19 was a demand crisis which we got through by inebriating the economy with easy monetary policy and lousy debt injections. This time, it's an energy supply crisis, which means just injecting money won't work.
The war makes zero sense if I reduce it to nothing more than a failed campaign of the second coming of crassus. However, it doesn't appear so brainless after all if I entertain the possibility that this whole conflict is using Trump as a frontman/figurehead CEO, and that the real incentive/point of the war is to benefit the traditional triad which drove American imperialism to begin with - the petrodollar, the military industrial complex, and sovereign debt.
What do you guys think? I'm seriously, seriously worried as a South Korean because if this scenario plays out and Trump pulls off the greatest bull trap of history by pretending to be a sorry loser and retreating, only to escalate the conflict in a surprise attack, it would inconvenience Europe and absolutely traumatize Asia. My own family's business would face serious challenges if this happens......