UK and France lead 30-nation military push to reopen Hormuz

Britain and France are hosting a two-day conference convening military planners from more than 30 countries to organize a multinational effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. The IEA has already declared the strait unreliable. Global inventories are drifting toward record lows. Kuwait has declared force majeure. And now thirty nations are preparing what amounts to a naval coalition to secure a 21-mile-wide channel that carries a fifth of the world’s oil. The petrodollar system was built on the assumption that Hormuz would stay open. That assumption is dead. What replaces it — a militarized shipping lane, a new currency regime, or something no one has invented yet — is being decided right now.