Strait of Hormoz & Non-Citizen Voting

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The issues that matter most, right here. The Drew Mariani Show.

Phil Flynn (0:05)

On Relevant Radio.

Trey Yankes (0:10)

New comments today by Iran's Parliament Speaker and top negotiator, Mohammed Khalibab, who said the Strait of Hormoz will remain closed until Iranian demands are met. Now, what the Speaker did not mention is that the United States is still escorting millions of barrels of crude oil out of the Persian Gulf each day. There is also an on-going US naval blockade that is crippling the Iranian economy. We're starting to see those inflation numbers rise inside of Iran, and the currency is weakening. And so at this point, there is no diplomatic progress being made.

Ed Morrissey (0:41)

It's The Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio.

Welcome back, everyone. I'm Ed Morrissey of hotair.com, filling in for Drew today and taking your calls at 888-914-9149, 888-914-9149.

That was Trey Yankst of Fox News talking about the Hormuz crisis. I call it the Hormuz crisis just because it's easier than having to keep spitting out the Strait of Hormuz crisis. But this is about the ongoing blockade, the economic blockade and really economic siege of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, which is the entity within Iran that controls most of its economy, including the sale of oil. And Mohammed Ghalabaf is the parliamentary speaker of the regime and one of the voices that has been insisting that Iran is going to control the Strait of Hormuz forever. As Yankst mentions though, the output of crude has reached pretty close to pre-war levels. That is not the entire story, however, because there's more that gets transacted through the Strait of Hormuz than just the crude oil. And some of that has to do with why prices remain high in the United States on refined products, as well as things like fertilizer and diesel especially. And we're going to talk a little bit more about that to find out why things are the way they are, why prices are the way they are. And joining us to discuss that is Phil Flynn. He's a Senior Market Analyst and author of The Energy Report at the Price Futures Group. He's also a contributor to Fox Business Network. You can find out more at pricegroup.com. Phil, thanks for coming on today to talk a little bit more about this.

Phil Flynn (2:32)

And I'm excited to be here, especially on the feast of St. Faustina. I think this is my second St. Faustina feast day that I was on, so I feel very honored and a special day and hopefully an exciting time for oil because I think we're getting close to the end of this madness in price and I see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Ed Morrissey (2:54)

You know, it's interesting because we've seen the price of crude oil fluctuating. By the way, yes, thank you very much for pointing out that today is the feast of St. Faustina, which is going to make today's Divine Mercy Chaplet even more special. That's coming up at the top of the next hour, folks, so be sure to call in your prayer intentions to join us for the chaplet. But Phil, I mean, I'm here in Texas. Prices here are better than, say, California, where I was at about a week and a half ago.

But they're still high here, right? There's a relatively high there in the high threes at the moment here in Texas. Last time I filled up the tank. And we've seen the price of crude oil go up and down. But what we haven't seen is the price of refined gasoline come down a lot.

Here in the United States, it's kind of true in other places as well. We are not terribly reliant on output from the Persian Gulf. Europe is much more reliant on it than we are, for instance. So why are prices sticking at the high points here in the United States? And does it make a difference what is getting through the Strait and the US-Iranian conflict there?

Phil Flynn (4:07)

No, I think it's because we are not reliant on the Strait of Hormoz, but Europe has become reliant on us because of what's happened in the Strait of Hormoz. And this is the crux of the matter here. And this is a situation that has been, I've been warning about for years, about the green energy madness, right? You know, everybody was saying, oh, we got to get off diesel fuels. We've got to do all these things.

And what we did is we've closed probably 20 refineries around the world, many in Europe, even some here in the United States, with this belief that somehow magically, you know, if we would knock down the refineries, the air would be cleaner, but not giving any thought to what if we need the supplies. And, and I think the vulnerability of the refining capacity situation has been exposed because of this war, right? And because of, you know, Europe became more dependent on Russia. Ukraine's hit on Russian refineries, they're out, so less supply.