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- Date published:
4:35 pm, April 5th, 2026 - 38 comments
Categories: Donald Trump, International, Peace, war -
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“All of those countries that can’t get jet fuel because of the Strait of Hormuz, like the United Kingdom, which refused to get involved in the decapitation of Iran, I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the U.S., we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,” Trump said in a Truth Social post this week.
So, collectively, why don’t we?
It would be marvellous if the entire world could hold their economic breath and wait for a holy host of angelic schadenfreude to descend upon the United States as a result of their military folly in Iran. In the spirit of “well you broke the shop crockery so you pay for it.”
With diesel stocks now counted in weeks here and elsewhere, you know there’s no chance of that. There will be no righteous “lesson learned”, unless it is the smallest and most vulnerable states like ourselves doing the learning. At no point have President Trump’s consequences been squarely held against him and there’s no chance of that now either.
The crude oil price is as of writing at US$112 per barrel. This suits the US-based oil majors and OPEC+ members just fine. The rest of the world particularly the most trade-reliant free market countries like ourselves, are price takers not price makers, and there is very, very little we can do about that consequence now.
If there is one country with the capacity to successfully reinvent itself and regain new forms of power in the world after a crisis, it is the United States of America.
They successfully reinvented themselves after the war in Vietnam, after the 1970s oil shocks, after the 9/11 attacks, after the 2008-9 Great Financial Crisis, after the failure in Afghanistan and Syria. They will most likely do it again now because they have the power in myriad forms to do so.
The United States of America retains Number 1 dominance over all the engines of cultural reinvention, of information reinvention, of financial reinvention, even of political reinvention – and rebuilds that control on a scale without rival.
President Trump is very clear that NATO members other than the United States have been “free riding”; with the United States bearing a disproportionate share of NATO defence costs, and many NATO allies failing to meet the agreed-upon target of spending 2% of their GDP on defence.
European Union nations in particular have allowed United State military spending and operational support in both nuclear deterrence and conventional military presence in the form of whole military bases, which has in turn enabled EU countries to allocate more funds towards social services. They get it now.
If there is any country in the world that has the resources and the will to come out of this US-induced energy crisis just fine, it is the United States. China – the only economic rival the United States has – consistently shows no sign of stepping up to provide the scale of security guarantees that the United States has for the shipping upon which clearly the entire world still relies.
No one should for a moment propose yet that the United States “empire” whatever that is, is in decline. Its stock markets, media markets, security apparatus, financial largesse, technological innovation machinery, military power, media power, and its political bully pulpit power, leave every other country and national collectivity in their wake. That’s not fair, granted, but fairness isn’t relevant right now.
We simply cannot imagine a world in which US accents are absent from popular songs, absent from AI chatbots, from US company brands dominating our malls and on the internet, absent from our social and mainstream media platforms, absent our devices themselves, from our sports, our news, from the algorithms that increasingly guide our daily decisions and preferences, from our actual thinking: we are soaking in the United States of America. We are deep beneficiaries of the United States “empire” in all its soft and hard forms.
We may be “so tired of you America”, but we can’t leave even if we wanted to.
Donald Trump’s policies have driven an historic shift in the entire developed world, who are now moving to significantly expand their own defence spending and decrease their free riding on United States security guarantees. Trump has woken us up to the scale of our dependence upon the United States, but the choice in this new red-pill world is to remain dominated and not a dream according to our deeds that we desire to be woken from.
Granted this is a difficult diplomatic line for a very small and weak state to navigate. Previous High Commissioner to the UK Phil Goff commented after being relieved of his command that:
“We kept our head below the parapets because Trump is the leader of the world’s most powerful country, [for] one. And two, he’s got a well-known reputation for vindictiveness,” Goff said. “But that is becoming an increasingly unsustainable position in my view.”
Goff said the United States was no longer a trusted ally.
“Under the Trump administration, the United States can no longer be regarded as a friend, an ally or a trading or security partner which is reliable,” he said. That point needs completely re-framing to be useful to us at all.
Trump is weaning the rest of the world off the largesse of the United States. It is necessary. New Zealand has allowed itself to become weaker and weaker, doing fewer and fewer things well. It is one of the most United States-addicted small states around, across all our systems and markets. Our only alternative node is with China.
We can collectively go get our own oil, and go get our own alternative to every other system that the United States delivers, or we can accept continued United States dominance of our lives.
So maybe Trump is right.
Too much reality and Real Politik in there Ad. We prefer our delusions I suspect.
I don't think Trump knows right from wrong these days ?
I agree, we should be weaning ourselves off US dependency.
I am now winding back my use of US-based credit and debit cards, and am using eftpos and cash as much as possible.
I'm tired of a lot of US popular culture, and think am beginning to look elsewhere, and just spending more time reading books from various places, including NZ and the Pacific.
If Trump is "right" it will be more due to his feelings, not his policies – for he hasn't any – except perhaps to hide the Epstein files and enrich himself and his family/associates.
Remember, this is the man who bankrupted two casinos, for God's sake! Maybe he'll excell himself and bankrupt the USA!
+100%
The Chump was always a total ignoramus only interested in himself and increasing his bank balance; and I strongly suspect he is increasingly subsiding into dementia. I can't follow his everyday movements, but his present ranting and speech patterns are very reminiscent of failing cognitive function.
ps I am now a full time care giver for a spouse with increasing dementia, so am very familiar with the condition.
How do you Bankrupt a Casino FFS ???
Wreck the world, and gamble on being the strongest survivor?
I saw the news that five US KC-135 in-flight refueling tankers had been damaged in the Iranian strike on Prince Sultan air force base base in Saudia Arabia and thought "Shit, that must make a big gap in their capability." Er, no, as it turns out. Defense News reports that these were five out of 376 KC-135s and that they're in any case in the process of being replaced by a newer model, of which there are already 100. In this country, we just have no cultural basis for being able to grasp the extent of US military capability.
I’m with Mark Carney.
https://thestandard.nz/the-carney-speech/ [Post + comments]
I don’t think the problem is that Donald Trump was “right,” or that New Zealand has suddenly been exposed as weak or cowed. The issue is more structural than that.
Our diplomacy, defence posture, and economic settings were shaped by a world where open trade, secure sea lanes, and a broadly stable, Western-backed rules framework could be relied upon.
The problem is not that we relied on that order. It’s that the conditions which made that reliance sensible are shifting.
International norms and laws are fragile things. They don’t enforce themselves. They persist because there is enough coercive power behind them to make non-compliance risky. But that creates a permanent tension: the same states that enforce the rules also have the power to shape them.That tension has left small, trade-dependent countries like New Zealand exposed in the current crisis.
There is no realistic pathway for New Zealand to independently negotiate or enforce access to the Strait of Hormuz. That’s not a failure of diplomacy or positioning: it’s a reflection of scale and capability. No matter what path the government took, we would have very little meaningful leverage over the outcome.
So yes, we should be supporting efforts to build a more resilient international order. One that is less exposed to the instincts of any single leader and more broadly supported across multiple centers of power.
But we also need to be honest about where we are starting from. That alternative order does not yet exist in a form that can replace the current one in a crisis.
We cannot simply opt out of the present system without accepting significant risk. Which means, in practice, managing this crisis within the system we have while preserving our relationships with the United States and the wider international community.
It’s not a satisfying position, but it is a realistic one that preserves our options for the future without burning any bridges.
If, and only if, alternative arrangements do emerge, whether led by Europe or others, we should be pragmatic enough to participate where they align with our interests.
Well put, thank you.
"But we also need to be honest about where we are starting from."
Honesty and quietism at this moment amount to the same thing. That is most certainly the approach of Luxon and Peters. That however is simply not the historic track record of Labour and predecessor governments in New Zealand, and it sure doesn't meet the moment we are heading into.
An alternative order didn't exist when Richard Seddon become the first government in the world to provide public housing for citizens. He was also the first in the world to introduce compulsory arbitration between workers and employers. He was also the first in the world to form an old age pension.
He wasn't honest at all about where New Zealand was starting from. He fundamentally rejected the world order about what governments could and should do.
Now, I could go through larger world firsts that went against the policy settings of the United States of every Labour government in New Zealand from Savage, to Fraser, to to Kirk, to Lange, to Palmer, to Clark, to Ardern.
None of them had much of a structural framework to build on, and most of them started something off that went directly against the leadership and policy setting of the United States. That was indeed their job and they knew it. (Occasionally even a few National leaders have also shown courage and planned from near-nothing into something of substance and durability.)
In many respects they built their own systems and the world caught up. In some instances the US was pulled along kicking and screaming. And sometimes, even when it looked like we were burning a bridge, we actually built something more durable. I know you know those examples.
So the reason you set out a position that is so unsatisfying to you as you write it, is because you know it is weak and you know that it is a courageous left in New Zealand has, and will consistently, build something better.
I don’t think Seddon and Savage are the examples you should be reaching for.
Their boldest innovations were domestic, where New Zealand had genuine room to act. In foreign policy, their choices were much narrower, largely confined to how closely they aligned with Britain within an order they did not control.
A better analogy is Fraser after 1945, when the old imperial framework was obviously on its deathbed and New Zealand helped pivot toward collective security.
That was not an act of wishful thinking. It was a recognition that the underlying structure had changed, and that our interests were better served by helping build a new framework than by pretending the old one still held.
The mistake is to conflate our ability to build the domestic and economic institutions we want within an international order with the ability to determine that order itself.
Domestic agency is not the same as systemic power.
Yet it is also true that domestic capability (realignment) can mitigate some of the global risk as the world adjusts to MAGA USA.
The Iran gardening may get periodic. The Iranian risk management (service to Moscow) regime may have similar effect.
Thus the need to install a government serious about reducing demand for imported fuel for road transport.
*we need more hydrogen (some local already) and electric trucks/vans/utility vehicles (Chinese developments).
We can also be pro-active
*replacing WTO with an ITO sans USA (unless they abide by rules – tariffs etc)
*be internationalist, not team USA unilateralism.
You’re right that domestic choices can reduce exposure to external shocks. Electrification, efficiency, and more resilient supply chains all help at the margin.
But we should be clear about scale. New Zealand doesn’t set global energy markets, and we don’t get to opt out of them. Even with aggressive domestic transition, we remain exposed to geopolitical risk.
Likewise, ideas like replacing the WTO without the United States run into the same constraint: small states can’t unilaterally reconfigure the global order. At best, we can align with larger partners and support incremental shift. But that’s a long and uncertain process.
There are signs players like Canada and the European Union may step up, but that only reinforces the point: any shift will be coalition-driven, not something New Zealand directs. Which brings us back to where we started: we have to operate within the system that exists, not the one we might wish for.
So yes, we should absolutely build resilience where we can. And campaign strongly on doing so in November. If we’re prepared to spend a billion dollars on an LNG terminal with a dubious business case, we should be equally willing to invest in diesel reserves, solar, and electrification.
But that’s not a substitute for navigating the world as it is. We still have to play our cards well.
I think Trump is wrong on just about everything.
His presidency is an affront to the March 4 constitutional republic, his domestic policies make their nation and society weaker. His foreign policy is doing the same to the rest of the world (with the notable exceptions of Russia and China) and also global institutions.
It was always right that the Strait of Hormuz & Bab el-Mandeb Strait (Red Sea to Arabian Sea) be open to shipping.
The one placing that a risk was Trump (Iran used the attack on it to seek control of the regions polity as a security move – attacks on nations hosting US bases).
What is true is that the MAGA movement control of the GOP means there is no longer a reliable American partner for building an international order, or global system. The quite deliberate destruction of competence in their government administration means it is unlikely to return. They will have oligarchy and Christian nationalist populism and would export that corrupt Manifest Destiny model, as they once did freedom and democracy.
The new world project is in its Latin empire phase and will now fall as surely as Byzantine did.
The 250th anniversary marks its fall.
Trump started a completely unnecessary war where an obvious consequence was the closing of the Straight of Hormuz. Why on earth should the Europeans clear up his mess. He is a loony.
For instance Trump said this yesterday:
"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP"
In response Democrats said:
Trump is “dangerous and mentally unbalanced," (Bernie Sanders)
"…the President of the United States is ranting like an unhinged madman on social media. He’s threatening possible war crimes and alienating allies. This is who he is, but this is not who we are. Our country deserves so much better,” (Chuck Schumer)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2026/apr/05/middle-east-crisis-live-iran-israel-us-war-trump-strait-hormuz-missing-pilot-downed#top-of-blog
Rather than helping this genocidal nutter in order to secure oil supplies, NZ should be looking at ways to reduce oil imports to the point of being largely self-sufficient. Renewables and EV’s being the obvious method. 75% of imported oil is spent on transportation.
From AI (no time to link): “Approximately 76% of New Zealand’s total imported oil products are consumed by the transportation sector. This includes domestic land transport (road and rail), domestic aviation, and water-based transport, with road transport being the primary use.”
"NZ should be looking at ways to reduce oil imports to the point of being largely self-sufficient." Amen to that.
The next Labour leader (whomever he or she is) can get " started something off that went directly against the leadership and policy setting of the United States. " by creating MOW 2.0.
Solar on every school, marae, library and public building. Solar farms and EVcharger network roll out. Building capacity so we are upgrading our own ports for ferries and expansion of coastal shipping. Build the smaller pumped hydro schemes on the existing dams.
Electrify the train set and become an exporter of truck and trailer units.
Start to undo the devestating effects of neo-liberalism which goes against the leadership and policy of Aotearoa and the US. After all Trump, by his actions in both terms in office, has shown us it's OK to act in your own countries interests when it suits.
+1000 gsays
Agree+100%
BG…is this Link pertinent/useful? Robert McLachlan..
Yes it relates to Trump and the supply of oil which is referred to in the post. The post is wide-ranging and opens up broader issues.
Luxon and his COC government appear to be fairly cozy with Trump and would probably agree with the sentiment expressed in the post possibly even to the point of getting NZ involved in military action to reopen the Straight of Hormuz.. The COC government Luxon (supposedly) leads has similar views to Trump including promoting the search for fossil fuel and supporting anti-environment measures such as importing LNG and doing nothing to encourage EV use or solar power.
What is interesting Psych is the very small percentage of coal usage for power. I've been banging on about this for years on TS saying that coal usage is usually 5% or less and only rises to around 10% in very dry years when we are short of hydro.
This is so small that Shane Jones going on about importing mountains of Indonesian coal is a complete red herring. Most countries would give their right arm to have these numbers.
But as your post and link say, oil used for transport is the real issue. The COC is doing almost nothing to allay this. Labour has a huge opportunity here.
Charles, Linda, Lisa, Jeffrey, Timothy, Soshanna, James, Nancy, Milton, Charles 2 and Joseph (the country’s top military lawyers), Jennifer, Yvette, Alvin and Randy.
Pete's got 'em on the list — he's got 'em on the list;
And they'll none of 'em be missed — they'll none of 'em be missed
Totally BG
But why not include along Bernie and Schumer – MTG!
Here is what she has had to say – and I have to admit what she says I surprisingly agree with!
plus 100 Macro
I maintain that Russia funded Iran to fund the Palestinians to do their terror attack on Israel because they knew it would cause ructions in the Middle East that would divert attention from Ukraine. And it worked, Israel bit back and then USA decided to go for the ride causing havoc. The only one winning, on so many fronts, is Putin.
Countries gave up their nuclear arms and nuclear arms research (anti-proliferation treaties) in favor of the super powers having them and in return got treaties of mutual defense. It may have been blind of Europe to expect the USA to keep to their treaties but then you can't always imagine how stupid and immoral people can be.
We can't go to war with Iran because it's against international law and probably against New Zealand law (as it is against UK law). That's why Starmer can't "help" the USA. NZs only choice is to abide by international law because we need as many others as possible to abide by international law for our own sake.
Trump must be delusional if he thinks Spain is going to help the USA in any way. Trump has just spent billions of dollars treating Hispanic people like absolute crap through ICE, but also dicking around in Hondouras, when Spain has deep cultural and political affiliations with The Americas. (and Trump probably doesn't even see the connection). Treating allies like crap is one way to make your allies back off and do the minimum.
The USA may be the strongest country but other countries can band together to work for their mutual best interests against the USA, Go Carney.
Even..as a Thought Experiment, (IMO from the What is a chair school) any Rational look at the evidence just says…No.
Every day Trump descends further to madness.
We should be looking very hard at our future here.
If the clock said 3 o'clock and Trump said, "It's 3 o'clock", does that mean "Trump is right" or does it mean it's 3 o'clock?
"…go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT." is so wrong – supporting and furthering the belief that Might is Right just drags us deeper into the mire we all have to extract ourselves from eventually – why rack up another barrier to human development as expressed through international politics?
"We simply cannot imagine a world in which US accents are absent…"
I can and I think that's a very good place to start; loosen the grip over our imaginations by extinguishing the language hooks embedded by a culture that has proved itself a threat to global wellbeing.
There are Alternatives. If useful, here are some thoughtful articles…
Prof Robert Patman,along with the other Authors, people whose Political Opinions I greatly respect
Our foreign policy “independence” is a bit overstated. We’ve always operated within constraints: trade, security partnerships, and the broader international system all shape what’s actually possible.
This isn’t so much a reckoning as a reminder that those constraints are shifting. The task now is to re-examine the assumptions that have underpinned our approach, and decide how we operate within them going forward.
Is Trump right in the head? Witness operation Epic Fury + project White House ballroom.
Trump will fight them on the bunkers… bonkers.
I don't think that there is a realistic way to force open the Straits of Hormuz on a permanent basis. Not unless some idiot wants to start throwing nuclear weapons around and killing off the population of Iran. Which would be self-defeating anyway, because then you'd see the oil and gas fields in the middle east burn as well.
That is because the logistics of warfare have been fundamentally shifting with the introduction and widespread innovation of drone technologies. These make whole classes of technology dual use for civilian and military use, and accessible to any person or group with reasonable tech skills.
Just looking around my office and garage, I can see about half of the components required to build a small radio controlled drone with a minimal explosive charge with a range of several kilometres. Concentrated power in lithium batteries, single board computers, radio receivers (software defined radio), GPS, programming tools, camping gas cylinders…
I really only lack a frame to mount it on like a model aircraft, car, or boat, a better transmitter system than the cell network or garage opener, and a electrical fuse. I could wander out and buy the remaining bits in a few days. Not to mention the components for better explosives.
I think that we're at an inflection point in the world at present. People have tended to concentrate on drones as offensive weapons. But as we have seen in Ukraine, Gaza, and now Iran they are effective as economic defensive weapons. They drain the economies and credibility of aggressors because they are dispersed weapon systems where the precursors don't require targetable heavy industry or concentrated industrial plan, and they they act as resilient resistance weapons.
The Russian Federation has been stalled by defensive positions backed by tactical drones and has been wasting soldiers, convicts and equipment trying to overrun them. The Israelis, funded almost entirely by the US, are having to mount permanent, very expensive and economically sapping occupations in surrounding territories to prevent drone production. The Yemen and Lebanon have a similar standoffs. I expect that the same will happen with Iran and the Hormuz. Non of these have been resolved by military means despite the massively expensive
The only permanent solution in all of these places will be political and diplomatic.
Israel has flattened Gaza, a tiny territory after expending enormous resources and with only the prospect of expending more in the future. It is a meaningless effort. That hasn't removed their problem.
The Gazans are still there – a problem that the boneheads of Israel still hasn't resolved since their stupid ethnic cleansing campaigns in 1947/8, nearly 80 years ago. They have to occupy the territory, because they know that the drones will reappear if they leave – but will even if they stay. The same applies with Iran – the stupidity of the 1953 CIA coup has been reverberating down history. It forms the fundamental basis of the hostility between the Iran population and the US administrations ever since..
The problem isn't the populations of the West Bank, Gazans, Yemen, Ukraine, Iran or even North Korea. The problem, is that strategies based on on aggression and domination based on superior technology have steadily being eroded since the 1930s.
New Zealand shouldn't get involved at a military level in any of these areas unless it is as part of a internationally accepted diplomatic settlement – in a peace keeping and policing role.
I worry that will not be adhered too by the likes of the USA and Israel. If recent examples in Lebanon are anything to go by. We should expect/plan the loss of personal, when this eventuates. As I'm with you can't see any solution without some sort of peace keeping/policing role put into place in any sort of peace deal.
The yanks are sitting there thinking nothing can affect them – mmmmm I beg to differ. As you rightly say, war has changed, and a individual or a collection of individuals who can spend 10 days planning and preparing for action can do a lot of damage with current tech.
As for the rest of your post, thanks enjoyed reading.
As a side issue to my last comment. The Hormuz shouldn't be our focus. It just highlights our own economic problems.
What we should be doing to reducing our current dependencies on fossil fuels, both in needing them but also in our sourcing of what we do need. Fossil fuels are a major import cost, and one that we should minimise because over the longer term they are a finite resource. They were formed in geological periods with far different surface ratios of volatiles, with much more stable geological processes, and over vast period of time.
Closing the Marsden refinery meant that we could start sourcing more widely. Unfortunately we appear to be only in the first stages of doing that, as the current energy crisis is demonstrating. We're still dependent on a supply line that formed in the final days of the British empire.
Getting supply from sources that don't have supply risks should be a priority, even if they are more expensive. That, in itself, helps in giving a stronger price signal to our domestic market to change away from imported fuels with the associated supply side risks and towards local renewable energy sources.
Exporting what fossil fuels that we do have, should be stopped. If we don't export them, then they can be used later when we have the capacities to use them efficiently.
Doing exploration agreements based on use or pay should be confined to history. We should build local micro refineries and processing plants for our local grades of hydrocarbons targeted at local or specialised exports.
We've been exporting our oil to offshore refineries because the Marsden Point refinery wasn't configured for the sweet light grades of oil that we have here. Our natural gas has in large part been squandered producing methonal for export because of a particularly idiotic use or pay exploration agreements from the 1960s.
Which is why I support a moratorium on oil and gas exploration. Not so much because of issues about climate change (although that is a part), but simply because since the 1960s we haven't managed to use those resources wisely. They have been squandered doing economically stupid things.
Looking at Shane Jones and Simon Watts is like looking at the fools that did the exploration agreements for the Maui, Kapuni, and other fields back in the 1960s. Short-sighted idiots chasing small short-term profits without heed for the future.
You might expect the Foreign Minister to reflect the position of the government when he meets with the Cuban non-national*, Marco Rubio, next week.
What chance Peters will actually convey that the NZ government and people are, "gravely concerned" over war escalation in the Middle East. I think he (like the author of this post) will more likely tacitly endorse US actions, whatever they are.
* Marco Rubio was born in the US to Cuban born parents. Fine as it goes but he is central to the administration wanting to restrict citizenship on such a basis.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/591327/supreme-court-justices-sceptical-of-trump-order-to-restrict-birthright-citizenship