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Who are the real targets of Trump’s war on Iran?
Conspiracy theories abound, but a failed opportunistic attack is likely to be closer to the truth
Reuters/Evelyn HocksteinI don’t like conspiracists or conspiracy theories. But if you do, here is a persuasive one: Donald Trump started the war against Iran with the twin aim of damaging the economies of Asia – China in particular – and removing his biggest rivals in global energy markets: the GCC exporters of the Gulf.
Israel, which has no interest in the wellbeing of Arab economies, was happy to go along for the ride and take out Iran in the process.
It is a narrative of shocking realpolitik, but some oil traders and analysts are buying into it – and adding for good measure that the timing of the US-Israel attack was all concocted by Washington too. According to this theory, Trump wanted to show his ability to inflict serious economic damage on Asia ahead of his meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping next month.
If this sounds too cynical to be true, one only has to look at the scoreboard eight weeks into the conflict, according to figures from the International Energy Agency and the US Energy Information Administration.
Since the February 28 attacks, the Gulf’s energy arteries have effectively been frozen. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have seen a combined export decline of over 4 million barrels per day. The UAE alone has seen more than half of its production stranded behind the Hormuz blockade.
Add in the shut-in production from Iraq and Kuwait, as well as the now blockaded Iranian supply, and the Gulf is missing around 12 million barrels per day.
Meanwhile, US crude exports have surged to an all-time record of 12.9 million barrels per day, neatly filling the gap in global energy markets.
The US oil majors – Exxon Mobil, Chevron and the rest – are going to make $28 billion in “war windfall” profits in the first quarter of 2026, analysts forecast, while the Gulf exporters suffer billions of dollars of revenue shortfall each day the Strait is closed.
The process has been even more surgical in gas markets. Following the Iranian strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex and the de facto closure of the Strait, Qatar has been forced to declare force majeure on nearly 20 percent of the world’s LNG supply, effectively abandoning core customers in Asia.
In this vacuum the US has surged to become Asia’s primary gas supplier. American LNG facilities are now operating at full capacity, exporting record volumes to the very Asian hubs that were once the exclusive domain of the GCC. Last month the USA exported more LNG to Asia than Qatar, for the first time ever.
It is a historic transfer of market power, executed under the guise of a defensive blockade by the US Navy. So the theory goes.
The logic of this “theory” rests on a brutal triple-play by Trump.
Firstly, by igniting a conflict that predictably shuttered the Strait of Hormuz, Washington has effectively severed the energy artery that feeds its primary rival, China. Beijing, which draws roughly 40 percent of its total LNG and oil from the Gulf, is facing a structural energy crisis, like the rest of Asia.
Secondly, the war has effectively neutralised the GCC’s status as the world’s energy security hub. By launching a unilateral strike, without consulting Riyadh or Abu Dhabi, the Trump administration ensured that the inevitable Iranian retaliation would fall squarely on its own partners.
Further reading:
- Drilling companies see promise in post-war energy build-out
- Hormuz blockade: a sieve, not a chokehold
- Call it what it is: the War of Hormuz
This isn’t just “collateral damage”, it is the strategic removal of the US shale industry’s most formidable competitors from the global board, the conspiracists say.
Thirdly, and perhaps most damning, is the nature of the current blockade. While the US blames Tehran for the closure of Hormuz, Washington has imposed its own “security” cordon that is effectively strangling its allies in the Gulf
This blockade is a masterclass in selective pain. It has created a two-speed energy market: one where Gulf oil is “stranded” behind a wall of war-risk premiums and physical threats, and another where US oil and gas majors are feasting on the chaos.
I do not go along entirely with the conspiracists. Trump may feel an ideological imperative to do damage to his main rival, China, but the strategy as outlined is too sophisticated, and too diabolical, even for this fevered White House administration.
A more likely explanation is that (as the New York Times meticulously described) Israel talked Trump into an opportunistic attack which has clearly failed in its objectives, and provoked consequences – the attacks on GCC producers and the closure of the Strait – that should have been forseen but were negligently underestimated. Cock-up rather than conspiracy.
But the effect is the same. Asia and the Gulf are suffering, while US energy sweeps the global board. Every day the Strait remains closed simply magnifies the consequences.
Frank Kane is Editor-at-Large of AGBI and an award-winning business journalist. He acts as a consultant to the Ministry of Energy of Saudi Arabia
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