Join Us at the 2023 World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida!

? Dates: November 17, 18, and 19 ? Location: Orlando, Florida, USA (or tune in from home with our virtual ticket options)

Are you ready to unlock the future of economics and finance? Prepare for an unforgettable World Economic Conference experience in sunny Orlando, Florida! This premier event is your gateway to insights, networking, and valuable resources that will supercharge your understanding of the global economy.

?️ What’s Included for In-Person Attendees:

1. Event Admission: Enjoy reserved seating assigned based on the order of ticket sales, ensuring you have a prime view of every presentation.
2. Presentation Slides: Gain access to the presentation slides from all speakers, allowing you to delve deeper into the topics discussed.
3. Video Recording: Can’t make it to a session? No worries! You’ll receive access to video recordings of all conference presentations, so you can catch up at your convenience.
4. WEC Event App: Connect with the conference on a whole new level. Access presentation slides, bonus reports, recordings, and more via the official WEC Event App.
5. Bonus Conference Materials: Get a package of bonus conference-related materials, including exclusive bonus reports and videos (as provided by Martin Armstrong).
6. Morning Information Sessions: Don’t miss out on important morning information sessions, screened on-site in the meeting room on Saturday and Sunday.
7. Networking Opportunities: Exclusive access to the Event App Networking Feature allows you to connect with fellow attendees, both in-person and virtual, fostering valuable professional relationships.
8. Culinary Delights: Savor delicious breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday, prepared to keep you energized throughout the day.
9. Cocktail Reception: Kick off the conference in style at our Friday evening cocktail reception. Meet and mingle with fellow attendees while enjoying refreshing drinks.
10. Swag Bag: As a token of our appreciation, each in-person attendee will receive a swag bag filled with goodies, including an Armstrong Economics notebook, pen, and an event collector’s mug!

Unable to travel? We also have two different ticket options for those wishing to attend virtually! 

Don’t miss this opportunity to be part of a global gathering of economic and financial minds. Secure your spot at the World Economic Conference in Orlando, Florida, and gain the knowledge, connections, and resources you need to thrive in the world of finance and economics.

Space is limited, so act now and reserve your seat! Visit our Events page to register and join us in sunny Orlando this November.

Now available at all major retailers!

The eBook will be available shortly.

The second edition of “The Plot to Seize Russia – The Untold History” is now available for purchase in paperback and hardcover on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. The ebook will be available shortly.

Book description:

“Take care of Russia,” Boris Yeltsin said as he departed his presidency in August 1999. These words were directed at current Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Yeltsin specifically picked Putin as his predecessor to prevent the takeover of Russia.

So, who was Yeltsin warning against? Newly declassified documents from the Clinton Administration prove that there was a plot to rig the Russian election of 2000. These never-before-seen documents confirm numerous attempts to implement pro-Western policies using the Russian oligarchy headed by Boris Berezovsky.

On the other side were the communists who desired a return to the glory days of the Soviet Union. As one of the largest international hedge fund managers, author Martin Armstrong found himself in the middle of perhaps the greatest espionage, or attempt at a regime change for Russia, in modern history.

The Plot to Seize Russia pulls back the curtain to expose the most extraordinary attempt to seize power in modern history, but with the pen rather than armies. These declassified documents reveal a plot that has altered our thinking about the relations between the United States and Russia. The thirst for power comes seething through every line of these papers that alter our perception of reality, change the course of history, and now threaten us with World War III.

The politicians continue to speak about the Strait of Hormuz as though this were merely a regional dispute between Iran and its neighbors. That is complete nonsense. The strait is one of the most important arteries in the global economy, carrying roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and gas shipments. Brent crude has moved above $91, but the headline price of oil is only the beginning. The real economic damage appears in shipping rates, insurance premiums, refinery margins, diesel prices, electricity costs, and ultimately government borrowing. War does not remain confined to the battlefield. It enters every household through inflation.

Washington claims the strait is open while Iran insists it remains closed. Both statements are political propaganda because it is the shipowners, insurers, and commodity traders who determine whether a waterway is commercially open. A tanker can theoretically pass through Hormuz, but that means nothing if the insurance premium becomes prohibitive or the crew refuses to accept the risk. Most politicians have never operated a business and do not understand that commerce depends upon confidence—not government declarations. Once confidence collapses, trade will retreat regardless of how many officials stand before cameras insisting that everything remains under control.

This is why the cost of the conflict cannot be measured solely by the number of barrels temporarily removed from the market. Every vessel delayed or redirected reduces available shipping capacity and increases freight rates elsewhere. Insurers must reprice the probability of a tanker being damaged, captured, or destroyed. Refineries must compete for alternative supplies, while countries dependent upon Gulf energy begin building precautionary inventories. Traders add a geopolitical premium because nobody knows whether the next missile will strike a ship, a refinery, a pipeline, or an export terminal. These costs compound through the entire system long before the average person notices the increase at the gasoline station.

The more serious warning is coming from refined products, particularly diesel. Politicians obsess over crude because that is the price quoted every evening on television. Yet modern civilization runs on diesel. Trucks transport food and consumer goods, farmers operate machinery, construction companies run heavy equipment, and emergency generators protect hospitals and critical infrastructure. When diesel rises, the cost of virtually everything rises with it.

Governments will pretend that this inflation is temporary or caused by greedy corporations. They said the same thing after the monetary expansion of 2020. Inflation is never politically convenient because it exposes the true cost of government policy. A war financed through borrowing does not require politicians to present taxpayers with an immediate bill. The expense is transferred into sovereign debt, currency depreciation, and higher prices. The public pays through the destruction of purchasing power, while officials continue claiming that military operations can be conducted without domestic sacrifice.

Europe is particularly vulnerable. It has spent years undermining its own energy security while increasing sanctions, regulations, and military commitments. European governments are already struggling with weak growth, aging populations, expanding welfare obligations, and enormous debt. A sustained rise in energy prices will reduce industrial competitiveness and force governments to subsidize households once again. Those subsidies will require still more borrowing at precisely the moment bond yields are rising. This is the trap: war raises energy costs, energy raises inflation, inflation prevents central banks from reducing interest rates, and higher rates increase the cost of servicing government debt.

The bond market understands what politicians refuse to see. Long-term government yields are rising across Europe, the United States, and Japan because investors are beginning to question whether governments can continue borrowing without limit. The Middle East conflict is accelerating a sovereign-debt problem that already existed. Governments accumulated debt during the pandemic, borrowed again to subsidize energy after the war in Ukraine, and are now expected to finance another expanding conflict surrounding Iran. Each crisis is treated as temporary, but the debt is permanent.

This is how confidence collapses. The decline of an empire does not begin when it loses one battle. It begins when the cost of maintaining its military commitments exceeds the productive capacity of its economy. Rome debased its currency to pay the army and preserve the frontiers. Spain consumed the wealth of the New World financing wars across Europe. Britain emerged from two world wars victorious but financially exhausted, surrendering its position as the center of global capital to the United States. Military power is always dependent upon economic power, yet the warmongers imagine the relationship works in reverse.

Iran also understands that Hormuz is more valuable as a threat than as a permanently closed waterway. Completely stopping trade would damage Iran and alienate China, India, and other Asian customers dependent upon Gulf energy. Tehran does not need to seal the strait with an impenetrable naval blockade. It merely needs to create enough uncertainty that commercial traffic slows and the world pays a permanent risk premium. A missile landing near a tanker can accomplish economically what a fleet might fail to achieve militarily.

The United States may possess the naval power to escort ships, but it cannot force private capital to ignore risk. Nor can it guarantee that mines, drones, missiles, or small boats will never penetrate the security perimeter. Every escalation requires more ships, more aircraft, more personnel, and still more government spending. The attempt to protect the trade route therefore adds to the fiscal burden created by the disruption itself.

The Strait of Hormuz is becoming a tax imposed upon the entire world economy. It will appear in freight costs, food prices, utility bills, interest rates, government deficits, and eventually elections. Western leaders will blame Iran, corporations, speculators, or climate change before admitting that their endless wars carry an economic price.

Saudi Arabia recorded a budget deficit of 125.7 billion riyals, approximately $33.5 billion, in the first quarter of 2026. That is almost as large as the $44 billion deficit the government projected for the entire year. Spending increased by 20% while oil revenue declined by 3%, creating the very contradiction Vision 2030 was intended to eliminate. The kingdom is spending enormous amounts of oil revenue and borrowed money to build an economy that will supposedly no longer depend upon oil.

The government approved financing needs of 217 billion riyals, or nearly $58 billion, for 2026. This includes 165 billion riyals to cover the projected budget deficit and another 52 billion to repay maturing debt. But the Q1 deficit has already consumed most of the amount projected for the entire year. The government may recover some ground if oil revenues rise, but this exposes the vulnerability of every state-directed economic transformation. The projections assume that politicians can control spending, oil prices, regional stability, and investor confidence simultaneously. History demonstrates that they can control none of them.

The war with Iran has accelerated the problem. Saudi military spending increased by 26% during the first quarter as the kingdom attempted to protect its population, oil facilities, shipping routes, and critical infrastructure. Government expenditure on goods and services increased sharply, subsidies rose, and capital spending was brought forward. This is the hidden cost of war even for a country attempting to remain outside the conflict. Saudi Arabia does not have to invade Iran to pay for the war. It must spend billions defending itself against missiles, drones, disrupted shipping, higher insurance costs, and the possibility that the Strait of Hormuz will remain unreliable.

Vision 2030 was launched to diversify the Saudi economy away from oil, expand tourism, build new industries, and create private-sector employment for a young population. Those objectives are entirely rational. No government can assume that a single natural resource will finance the state indefinitely, particularly when Western governments are simultaneously regulating fossil fuels, subsidizing alternatives, and using energy policy as a geopolitical weapon. The problem is not the desire to diversify. The problem is the belief that diversification can be commanded from above through unlimited spending.

Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is now scaling back and shifting toward phased projects tied more closely to profitability. The original plans for The Line, a 112-mile linear city, became the international symbol of Vision 2030, but symbols do not produce cash flow. Projects are being reevaluated while the kingdom redirects attention toward logistics, artificial intelligence, clean energy, religious tourism, utilities, and infrastructure connected to events such as Expo 2030 and the 2034 World Cup.

There is nothing inherently dangerous about Saudi Arabia borrowing money. Its debt burden remains far below that of the United States, Japan, or the major European governments. The issue is the direction of the trend and the productivity of the expenditure. Debt used to construct infrastructure that increases trade, tourism, energy capacity, and private investment may strengthen the economy. Debt used to maintain political prestige, absorb operating losses, or defend projects that cannot survive without government support becomes a permanent claim upon future revenue.

The danger emerges when government borrowing begins crowding out the private economy Vision 2030 was supposed to create. Saudi banks, contractors, and investors naturally prefer projects supported by the state because political backing appears to reduce risk. Capital then flows toward whatever the government has designated a national priority instead of toward enterprises responding to genuine market demand. This produces the illusion of private-sector growth while the entire system remains dependent upon public spending. If the state reduces expenditure, the supposed private boom disappears with it.

This pattern is not unique to Saudi Arabia. Japan attempted to support growth through enormous infrastructure spending after its 1990 asset bubble collapsed, leaving behind bridges, roads, and regional projects that could not restore private demand. China used state-directed credit to build cities, railways, and property developments on an unprecedented scale, but debt accumulated when economic returns failed to match political projections. Dubai itself experienced the limits of debt-financed development during the 2009 crisis and required assistance from Abu Dhabi. Governments always believe their current project is different because they cannot imagine the economic cycle turning against them.

Saudi Arabia’s advantage is that it still possesses enormous energy reserves, financial assets, and the ability to attract international capital. Its disadvantage is that this apparent wealth encourages the belief that every project can be completed regardless of cost. Oil revenues can conceal mistakes for decades, but they cannot transform an uneconomic project into a productive one. If the kingdom must continually borrow against future oil income to finance diversification, then oil dependency has not ended. It has simply been moved from the present budget onto the future balance sheet.

The regional war makes that contradiction more dangerous. Higher oil prices may increase revenue, but attacks on shipping and infrastructure can reduce export volumes and raise security expenses. Saudi Arabia can therefore receive more per barrel while still confronting a deteriorating fiscal position. This is why analyzing oil producers solely through the price of crude is foolish. Revenue depends upon price, volume, transportation, security, and the cost of maintaining the state. War can increase the first while damaging every other component.

Vision 2030 may ultimately produce valuable infrastructure and a more diverse Saudi economy. That outcome will depend upon whether the government is willing to abandon projects that cannot generate an economic return. The decision to scale back the most extravagant parts of Neom may be the first sign that reality is beginning to overcome political ambition. Continuing every project merely to avoid admitting error would transform Vision 2030 from an economic reform into a sovereign debt machine.

Let me make something very clear. The Neocons have been talking about using nukes forever. There are people in Israel also talking about using a tactical nuke on Iran’s nuclear facility because nothing else would reach it. These discussions are not using a major nuclear weapon like Hiroshima. This is a bit out of place. It is nothing new and I can tell you that the default with some of these people is to just nuke the opposition.

President Trump has been suckered into this war by the Neocons who escorted their Trojan Horse into the situation room, Netanyahu. Trump was against endless wars promoted by the Neocons like John Bolton. According to reports from The New York Times and other outlets, Netanyahu was “escorted” or “whisked” into the White House Situation Room on February 11th, 2026, by President Trump’s team for a highly classified presentation on Iran. Netanyahu was a foreign leader given rare access to the White House Situation Room. I believe he was the FIRST ever to enter that room, but I cannot definitively confirm that.

It is also not possible to definitively state that Jared Kushner escorted Netanyahu into the Situation Room during the February 11, 2026, meeting. However, I can at least confirm that he was present at a White House meeting with Netanyahu that same day. Netanyahu is obsessed with Iran and has been trying to get the United States to destroy Iran at least since 1996.

President Trump, I believe, was lied to and told that killing the Ayatollah on day one would win the war. That is ALWAYS a Neocon solution. They said the same about Saddam and I have head the very same bullshit that if they took out Putin, the Russian people would cheer and give them their fictional tickertape parade. These people have the same sales pitch and they are ruthless and claim to be for democracy yet infiltrade every administration to promote their endless wars.

These Neocons have justified regime changes around the world since World War II. The reason WHY Iran calls the USA the “Great Satan” is precisely this issue. The CIA, working alongside British intelligence (MI6), orchestrated the 1953 Iranian coup d’état to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. A primary motivation was to re-establish Western control over Iran’s oil industry for the benefit of British and American companies.

This operation, known as Operation Ajax (or TPAJAX), is a well-documented example of Cold War covert intervention. The crisis was triggered by Mossadegh’s decision to nationalize Iran’s oil industry, which had been controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (the forerunner of BP).

These Neocons have usurped American foreign policy and claim that they are spreading “democracy” to the world when in fact they circumvent the Constitution and launch unilateral operations without any Congressional approval. This is no different from a dictatorship. The people are NEVER asked shall we overthrow a government or start a war.

I was told back in the ’90s that the US should overthrow all the dictators in the Middle East and that would secure Israel for the future. Here is a video of General Wesley Clark hearing the same thing after 9/11 in 2001. I heard that same idea about 5 years before in private discussions with a leading Neocon.

The political class watches the price of crude oil and gasoline because that is what appears in the headlines, but the real warning is diesel. The average retail price of diesel in the United States has reached approximately $5.45 per gallon, while the diesel crack spread—the premium of diesel futures over crude oil—has exceeded $100 per barrel for the first time. That spread has reached record highs repeatedly, revealing that this is no longer simply an oil problem. It is a refining and distribution crisis that will flow through the entire economy just as voters prepare for the November midterm elections.

Diesel is the lifeblood of the modern economy. Trucks deliver food to supermarkets, farmers operate tractors and combines, construction companies run heavy equipment, and railroads, ships, mines, factories, and emergency generators all depend upon distillate fuels. Gasoline affects the cost of driving to work, but diesel affects the price of almost everything waiting for you when you arrive. Every product must be grown, manufactured, mined, transported, or delivered. When diesel rises, the increase is embedded in every stage of the supply chain until it eventually reaches the consumer.

Crude oil can remain below previous records while diesel reaches crisis levels because crude is useless until a refinery transforms it into products the economy can consume. The United States has crude oil, but it cannot instantly create new refining capacity. Refineries require years of planning, billions in capital, environmental permits, specialized equipment, and a political environment in which investors believe they will be allowed to earn a return. Governments spent years discouraging investment in fossil-fuel infrastructure while promising that the energy transition would make such capacity obsolete. Now they are shocked that the system has no spare capacity when war disrupts global supplies.

The shortage is not coming from a single event. The war with Iran and insecurity around the Strait of Hormuz have disrupted Middle Eastern refining and shipping. Ukrainian drone attacks have damaged Russian refineries and forced Moscow to restrict fuel exports while importing products to address its domestic shortages. China has reduced exports, and American refineries are already operating near capacity. U.S. distillate inventories have fallen to their lowest seasonal level in decades while exports have increased to meet desperate foreign demand. This is a global competition for a shrinking pool of refined fuel, and no political speech can manufacture a barrel of diesel.

Farmers will be among the first to feel the damage. Agriculture consumes fuel directly through machinery and indirectly through fertilizer, irrigation, processing, refrigeration, and transportation. A farmer cannot simply stop operating a tractor because diesel has become expensive. Those costs must either be absorbed through lower margins or transferred into higher food prices. Many farmers are already confronting high interest rates, tariffs, drought conditions, and rising equipment costs. Diesel above $5 adds another expense at precisely the wrong time, and rural voters understand energy inflation far better than the economists sitting in Washington.

Truckers face the same problems. Large carriers may recover part of the increase through fuel surcharges, but smaller operators do not possess the same negotiating power. They must pay for fuel immediately while waiting weeks to receive payment for a shipment. Higher diesel prices therefore create a working-capital crisis in addition to an operating-cost crisis. Some independent truckers will leave the industry, reducing available capacity and pushing freight rates still higher. The politicians will then blame corporate greed for increasing prices without admitting that their foreign policy and energy policy created the conditions producing those increases.

This is how the Middle East war enters the 2026 elections. The government may claim that inflation is under control, but that claim becomes meaningless when diesel is approaching its previous record and the price of everything transported by diesel continues to rise. The voter does not care whether the increase is called headline inflation, supply-driven inflation, or a geopolitical risk premium. The voter knows only that wages purchase less than they did before.

Politicians always search for a way to suspend the laws of economics until after an election. Richard Nixon imposed wage and price controls in 1971 in an attempt to conceal inflation before the 1972 election. The controls distorted production and delayed rather than eliminated the price increases. Jimmy Carter confronted the political consequences of energy shortages and inflation at the end of the 1970s. Governments repeatedly blame oil companies, speculators, foreign producers, and consumers because admitting the truth would require them to accept responsibility for monetary expansion, regulation, underinvestment, sanctions, and war.

The diesel crisis is especially dangerous because it is converging with a sovereign-debt crisis. Higher transportation and food costs will keep inflation elevated, limiting the ability of the Federal Reserve to reduce interest rates. Higher rates increase the cost of servicing federal debt, which produces larger deficits and still more borrowing. The government will spend more to offset the very inflation its policies helped create, and that additional spending will intensify the long-term fiscal problem. This is not merely an energy cycle. It is the collision of war, inflation, and debt. Crude oil receives the attention because it is easier to understand. Diesel reveals what is actually happening beneath the surface. The record crack spread is warning that the world does not have sufficient refining flexibility to absorb simultaneous disruptions in the Middle East, Russia, and Asia.

By November, voters may not know what a crack spread is. They will certainly understand what it has done to their wallets. This is how the Iran war enters the 2026 midterm elections. Trump campaigned against the Neocon endless war machine, yet brought the nation into direct conflict in the Middle East.

Our Midterm Election Report warned that the decisive mechanism would be the collapse in confidence triggered by external conflict. Historically, midterms become a referendum on the president: since World War II, the president’s party has lost House seats in 18 of 20 midterm elections and Senate seats in 15 of 20. Republicans are entering that historical cycle with an extremely narrow 217–214 House majority.

The computer forecast is not calling for a Democratic landslide. The most likely outcome remains that Democrats take the House while Republicans retain the Senate, although four political models show a solid Republican victory and one places that probability above 70%. That divergence reveals how unstable the political environment has become. Republicans may survive if energy prices retreat and the war moves toward a credible settlement. If diesel remains near record levels into the autumn, the Iran war will become a domestic economic referendum and the narrow House majority will be the first casualty.

The party in power will try to make November about personalities, immigration, ideology, or whatever scandal dominates the media. Elections, however, are ultimately determined by confidence. People will tolerate political incompetence while their standard of living improves. They become far less forgiving when prices rise and the government insists that everything is fine. By November, most voters will understand what the war has done to their wallets.

David Morens, the longtime senior adviser who worked inside Anthony Fauci’s Office of the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit offenses and defraud the United States. Morens admitted participating in a scheme to evade the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Records Act regarding communications about coronavirus research grants.

According to the Justice Department, Morens and his associates anticipated that the public would request their records, so they agreed in writing to conduct government business through his private Gmail account. They used it to exchange nonpublic NIH information, influence funding decisions, edit letters to NIH leadership, and “back-channel” information to a senior NIAID official. This is not speculation or some social-media theory. It is a guilty plea in federal court by a man who served inside Fauci’s office from 2006 through 2022.

These were the same institutions that demanded access to everyone’s vaccination status, travel history, medical information, and personal contacts while their own officials deliberately concealed government communications. Morens also admitted participating in a conspiracy involving illegal gratuities. The Justice Department says he received wine for his “behind-the-scenes shenanigans” and identified an official act he could perform to “deserve” the gift—writing a scientific commentary advocating that COVID-19 had a natural origin. There were also offers involving meals at Michelin-starred restaurants in Paris, New York, and Washington. While ordinary people were prevented from visiting dying relatives and restaurant owners were driven into bankruptcy, insiders were discussing wine and expensive dinners. Is this what they meant when they ordered everyone to “trust the science”?

The entire pandemic response followed this pattern of demanding absolute obedience while avoiding accountability. The six-foot distancing rule transformed schools, businesses, churches, restaurants, and courtrooms. Yet when Congress asked Fauci about the evidence supporting that precise distance, he admitted that it “sort of just appeared” and that he was “not aware of studies” supporting it. Physical separation may reduce exposure under certain conditions, but that does not make six feet a scientifically proven dividing line between safety and danger. Government took a crude precaution, removed every qualification, and converted it into an inflexible command that helped keep children out of school and businesses closed.

Masks were handled in precisely the same manner. A properly fitted medical respirator used in a controlled environment was treated as equivalent to a loose cloth covering repeatedly worn by a child. Masks became a political uniform. Fauci initially discouraged widespread masking before reversing himself and helping turn it into a moral obligation. When Congress later asked whether he remembered reviewing studies supporting the masking of children, he could only respond that he “might have” but could not specifically recall. Children were forced to cover their faces for hours every day, but the official defending the policy could not identify the evidence he personally reviewed before supporting it.

Lockdowns became the most destructive expression of this bureaucratic arrogance. Governments closed businesses, interrupted medical treatment, suspended education, isolated the elderly, and restricted movement without conducting any credible assessment of the total long-term consequences. Officials claimed every decline in infections as proof that lockdowns worked and blamed every increase on the public’s failure to comply. Meanwhile, public employees continued receiving salaries, large corporations expanded their market share, technology companies gained extraordinary power over public debate, and pharmaceutical companies secured enormous government contracts. Small businesses, children, private workers, and future taxpayers were left to absorb the damage. The political class did not share the sacrifice it imposed upon everyone else.

Morens’ guilty plea exposes the real problem. Bureaucracies eventually cease protecting the public and begin protecting themselves. Records are concealed to preserve institutional reputations, dissent is suppressed to maintain official narratives, and failed policies are defended because admitting error would threaten the authority of those who imposed them. Confidence in government is not destroyed by people asking difficult questions. It is destroyed when the public discovers that those questions were justified and that government officials deliberately prevented the answers from emerging.

They told the public that questioning authority was misinformation. They censored critics, destroyed reputations, and presented political judgments as unquestionable science. Now a senior official from Fauci’s inner circle has admitted to participating in an actual conspiracy to conceal government records. The conspiracy is no longer a theory.

The United Arab Emirates has suspended all trade, commercial exchanges, and financial transactions with Iran until further notice after accusing Tehran of launching two ballistic missiles toward Emirati waters. Iran has denied responsibility, but that hardly matters once governments enter the cycle of retaliation. UAE-Iran trade has exceeded $28 billion annually, and Dubai has served for decades as Iran’s commercial doorway to the outside world. This is therefore not some symbolic diplomatic protest.

The UAE has severed one of Iran’s most important supply lines while simultaneously placing its own position as the neutral trading center of the Middle East at risk. Politicians never understand trade because they see only goods crossing a border. They do not see the networks of credit, shipping, insurance, currency conversion, warehousing, and personal relationships that can take generations to build and only days to destroy.

The UAE has been Iran’s largest source of non-oil imports, supplying nearly $22 billion in goods during the Iranian year ending in March 2025. Much of this was not produced in the Emirates but entered through its re-export system. Dubai became successful because it served as a bridge between East and West, facilitating trade for countries that could not trade directly due to sanctions. Iranian merchants used Dubai to obtain machinery, electronics, industrial components, and consumer goods, and to access international finance.

The new ban is therefore a financial blockade disguised as a trade regulation. Iran will now be forced to redirect transactions through China, Turkey, Iraq, Oman, Central Asia, cryptocurrencies, barter arrangements, and still more complicated front companies. Trade does not disappear simply because a politician signs an order. It moves underground, becomes more expensive, and rewards those willing to assume the greatest legal and political risk.

This is the same mistake governments have made throughout history. Athens attempted to use the Megarian Decree to cut Megara off from the markets of the Athenian Empire before the Peloponnesian War. Rather than forcing submission, economic warfare intensified the divisions that produced military conflict. Napoleon’s Continental System was intended to destroy Britain by excluding British commerce from Europe, but smuggling expanded, prices rose, allies resisted, and the policy ultimately weakened Napoleon’s own empire. The United States attempted to pressure Japan through restrictions on oil and strategic materials before Pearl Harbor. Politicians routinely imagine that economic sanctions are a peaceful alternative to war when they are historically one of the final steps toward war. Once a government attempts to strangle another nation economically, the targeted nation must either capitulate or escalate. There is rarely a third outcome.

The UAE is responding to a genuine security threat after attacks on shipping, infrastructure, and vessels connected to the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. No government can tolerate missiles being fired toward its territory or repeated attacks on its commercial fleet. Nevertheless, cutting all commercial and financial ties will not eliminate the threat. Merchants do not profit from war. Bureaucrats and military establishments do. By destroying the commercial bridge, the UAE is weakening the very private-sector relationships that could have pressured both sides toward restraint. This is why the first duty of government should be to avoid war, but governments always listen to the military and intelligence agencies that see every problem as an opportunity for confrontation.

The ban will also damage Dubai. The UAE has spent decades presenting itself as a politically neutral financial and commercial center where capital from every region can find safety. That reputation is now being sacrificed to the expanding Middle Eastern war. Iranian-linked money will begin searching for alternatives, but it will not be alone. Russian, Chinese, Indian, and other foreign investors will examine the decision and ask whether their own assets and transactions could someday become bargaining chips in another geopolitical conflict. Capital is never patriotic. It flees uncertainty and seeks the jurisdiction most likely to protect property regardless of politics.

The greatest risk remains the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly every attempt to isolate Iran economically increases Tehran’s incentive to use geography as a weapon. The strait remains one of the most important energy corridors in the world, and any sustained interruption will push shipping costs, insurance premiums, oil, refined products, and ultimately consumer prices higher throughout the global economy. Europe is already economically fragile, governments are drowning in sovereign debt, and the cost of war is rising everywhere. Yet the politicians continue to impose sanctions and embargoes as if there will be no consequences beyond Iran. They never look beyond the immediate announcement. They cannot comprehend that interrupting a $28 billion trade relationship will produce secondary effects across currencies, banking, shipping, supply chains, and energy markets.

This ban will certainly damage Iran, but it will not force the Iranian government to disappear. Sanctions normally punish the population while strengthening the state because scarcity gives government even greater control over who receives access to foreign currency, imported goods, and political favors. Iran will adapt, smuggling will increase, and new intermediaries will collect enormous premiums for replacing Dubai’s role. The real consequence will be the further division of the world economy into competing political blocs. Trade once restrained governments because both sides had something to lose. Now politicians are systematically destroying those connections and then wondering why the risk of war continues to rise.

The UAE may believe this trade ban will compel Iran to retreat. History warns that economic warfare does not end the cycle of escalation. It accelerates it. When trade stops, capital flees, diplomacy collapses, and the military becomes the only institution left speaking between nations. That is how regional conflicts become world wars.

QUESTION: What do you think about Trump now sanctioning the International Criminal Court? Is this not just to protect Netanyahu?

Derrek

ANSWER: I have written before that I had dinner with the ICC probably 10 to 12 years ago. They were outraged at my case, but they expressly stated that their jurisdiction is ONLY over member countries. The United States, Russia, Israel, and China are not members.

Sanctions imposed on the ICC are warranted. Under their own charter, the ICC has no power to arrest, detain, or prosecute officials whose government has not consented to ICC jurisdiction. I was told that personally at a dinner meeting.  Not only are their actions to arrest Netanyahu a violation of international law, but this applies also to Putin. This is no different from Mandami claiming he would arrest Netanyahu if he came to New York City.

Like NATO or any entity, they will always see to expand their power. The US campaign to dismantle the threat posed by the ICC to national sovereignty is appropriate. You cannot have countries arrest someone like Netanyahu or Putin on the words of the ICC that has no such power and would unleash international war.

The ICC has shown that is is political and not a court of law. They know they have no jurisdiction over Russia or Israel. This is like California fining you for speeding in New York City. Even Mandami had to back down because the Feds would storm NYC if he dared to try to arrest Netanyahu when it would certainly be a racist agenda. I may not have respect for Netanyahu, but that does not me I would disregard international law. You cannot do that and pretend you are a free democratic society under the rule of law.

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