The Achilles Strait

You are now reading the Bluebonnet Gazetteer, a periodical primarily to advocate for a white, christian, and nationalist America, but may include any subject this author finds important to speak on. This periodical is published on a bi-weekly basis, and at the time this is being written only distributed digitally. I hope that in time this periodical will be an indispensable piece of regular reading for those youth who wish to reclaim and perfect our American nation.

In this weeks article I would like to discuss recent events, rather, that recent events are another reason we should rely as little as possible on international trade. I will discuss statistics but please forgive me if some things are off, I have tried to understand the situation but there are deadlines and I am not a professional economist. I am sure you can guess that I am talking about the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and I am sure that anyone reading this in the future was smart enough to cross reference the publication date and events that happened around that time.

The Strait of Hormuz is a transit point for about thirty-percent of the worlds crude oil, twenty-nine percent of the worlds liquefied petroleum, nineteen percent of the world liquefied natural gas, and nineteen percent of the world refined oil products, of that refined product is thirty percent of the worlds already dwindling helium supply. The strait is also a transit for almost forty percent of the United States' urea, a fertilizer, forty percent of our aluminum, and a considerable deal of cement.

I am sure you understand now the strait is how a crucial amount of materials get to the United States. The biggest focus seems to be oil products, which is understandable since this is the most immediate price hike Americans saw, but with the strait being closed our societies infrastructure in its entirety is at risk.

This is not the first failing of trade either. I am sure everyone remembers the Suez Canal blockage, a single ship causing billions in losses and significant delays, I'm also sure some of you remember the threat Houthi rebels posed to global trade too. Since entering the twenty-twenties being a ship captain going through middle eastern waterways must be at least slightly nerve racking.

But even long long before our time international trade was a weak point for the nations that used it. In the bronze age from Greece to Saudi Arabia to Egypt there was a large trade network to produce bronze but also to transport grain, to the point of reliance to avoid famine.

"The gates of the house are sealed. Since there is famine in your house, we will starve to death. If you do not hasten to come we will starve to death. A living soul of your country you will no longer see."

Was a letter found from the time the bronze age as trade networks collapsed. As cities fell to the sea peoples other nations in the region collapsed as the trade network ceased to supply them.

Back to the modern day not only do trade disruptions threaten our nation, but even relying on other nations presents a critical risk to national security. As I said before the bronze age network collapsing collapsed nations that relied on foreign goods. Today America has a similar risk in rare earths from China.

We have seen recently with the trade war that America relies so heavily on China's rare earths that a deal was made to not raise tariffs on them, but even before China has used rare earths as a weapon against Japan. In the past China 'failed' to renew a trade license for rare earth to japan resulting in widespread panic since they are relied upon so heavily. After the license was renewed Japan, smartly, rushed to develop technologies that did not rely on rare earths, to stockpile rare earths, and increase domestic refinement. America has taken similar measures by pouring money into a rare earths mine in California that shut down during the Obama era, but it is still not operational, these things take time.

You, the reader, may be asking what my point is with all of this; I did not give a very in depth analysis of the Strait of Hormuz situation and all those others are far from current events. Well this is a nationalist publication and a very relevant concern is national security. The more we rely on international trade the greater leverage other nations have over us. What if we were to begin tearing down mosques and the middle east decided to cut off all trade flowing in their waterways? What if China decided to cut off our rare earths? Some economists may say that rare earths in sheer monetary value are a small percentage of trade but not having access to rare earths would make prices for everything skyrocket, and as there are rare earth shortages the price of rare earths would balloon. What if trade was cut during a war?

Trade reliance also worsens economic conditions, even in peace time, for the worker. Wealth flows out of a nation from imports, that is wealth that could have flowed back to the worker via wages. The domestic worker also has less bargaining power when, well, they have no job to begin with! There's no worker rights without scarcity of workers.

But what should be done? Well you, dear reader, must reinstate the Shah of Iran. No I kid. You, obviously, cannot go out and do something yourself. But broadly we must produce as much domestically as we can, not everything can be, and you should not worry about domestic production raising prices because the wealth the worker gets would be higher. Yet, I do not feel that is a good enough answer, so I will give a specific solution to the largest issue we have with trade, oil shortages.

So, to the nation I prescribe: Two things. The nation should invest in a great pipeline from the Gulf of America to the pacific ocean. If there is a large pipeline, rather many many pipelines part of the same super-structure, ships do not have to worry about shipping across the volatile middle eastern canals and straits. There should also be great investment into transporting oil, gas, et cetera, from either ocean into the nations inland.

This should also come with greater investment for over land transportation of goods. We already invest a great deal in overland supply chains, but what I mean is specifically between our gulf and pacific shores so that not only oil but all manner of goods have a way to traverse from America to the two oceans cheaply. A significant part of the ability to produce cheap goods in China is their robust publicly available infrastructure.

The second thing I shall prescribe is a good deal more radical. The president called on domestic producers to increase production while the strait was closed, but they refused, rightly I might add as it takes weeks or even months to get these things going. But, we should not have to call for this in the first place, our oil and gas should be primarily drilled and refined domestically.

This same vulnerability reared its head for the south during the civil war. Jefferson Davis called on plantation owners to grow food for the war but they continued to grow cash crops and hoarded them for when the war was over. Simply put, a person who owns the means of production has a duty to their nation before profits, yet we tell and expect these companies to only work off of profit incentives. This greedy way of ordering society drove another knife into the south and during this crisis has wounded our nation again.

So my second prescription is that we must expect national duties from our companies. It is because of the infrastructure paid for by the taxpayer, the army of citizens who die for our peace, and the civic servants that keep law and order that these companies can exist and profit as handsomely as they do, when you consider all the public does for them it isn't unreasonable for them to act patriotically for the greater good of the nation.

Author's comments:

I cycle my weekends between a 'weekend in action' and 'a weekend in idleness'. The weekend in action is a weekend where I schedule everything social to happen, friend hangouts, calls, meetings, lunches, et cetera, it is also where I schedule most of my non-work duties. The weekend in idleness is a weekend where I mostly do leisure activities, light shopping, book hunting, browsing antique stores, gardening, baking, et cetera. As of writing this, May fifteenth, it is a weekend in idleness, one I am particularly excited for too as this weekend I get to catch up on the spring Grand Sumo Tournament.