Markets Know Trump's Plan is Good

Earlier today on Newsmax and N2, I summed up promising developments related to the Iran war. Behind the hysteria from Democrats, the media, and the Pinko Pope, real-world events look fine. Talking points:

• Last week, the mainstream media and the Democrats were wailing that Trump hadn’t reopened the Strait of Hormuz, or included that objective in his war requirements.

• This week, the mainstream media and the Democrats are wailing that Trump is reopening the Strait of Hormuz and including it in his war requirements.

• That is the bottom line of Trump’s order to close the Strait and begin the de-mining process. The transit of two U.S. destroyers through the Strait for the first time since the war started indicates that the Navy is confident some channels are free of mines and resilient to Iranian attack.

• Oil futures markets reflect this reality even if the deranged and hysterical political class on both sides of the Atlantic does not. Current West Texas Intermediate futures markets show clear backwardation:

May 2026: $104.92
June 2026: $95.93
July 2026: $89.40

• The same is true for Dubai benchmark futures, which are more directly influenced by the Strait of Hormuz:

April 2026: $100.75
May 2026: $90.77
June 2026: $87.51
July 2026: $85.34

• In other words, people with real money and oil on the line know that the oil will flow and my nearly 7,000-pound, 510-hp living-room-on-wheels will be cruising around this summer, producing harmless carbon that is great for trees.

• Politicians lie. Money does not.

• In the course of a year, Iran has gone from the strongest regional power in the Middle East to the weakest. Meanwhile, the Great Satan and our allies are looking quite strong.

• The inability of Iranian negotiators to reach a reasonable agreement with the United States is a lost opportunity for Iran, not the USA. Iran often breaks agreements and there would be pressure to overlook Iranian violations and not resume military operations.

• Absent a deal, allied militaries can strike Iran as necessary. Iran should also expect a toll or embargo on its exports through the Strait. To make up for lost oil on the world market, Trump should drop all sanctions on Russian oil exports and investment in Russia.

• Sad Factoid: According to ChatGPT, the Strait of Hormuz is named for the island of Hormuz, which is named for Hormazd, a form of Ahura Mazda, the supreme deity in Zoroastrianism. As with anything but Shia Islam, Zoroastrianism, despite having originated in Iran as one of oldest monotheistic religions that may have influenced Judaism in late antiquity and therefore Christianity and Islam, is severely persecuted by Iran’s clerical regime. There are certainly way more Zoroastrians in Los Angeles than that part of Iran. Should the waterway be renamed the Arabian Strait or the Strait of Trump?

• The Pinko Pope typifies the growing problem of the religious left. They pervert long-established institutions to advance contemporary leftwing political goals that harm their parishioners.

• Helping church members with their lives and questions about how to relate to God and the infinite are less interesting to these politicians than playing to the cheers of an adoring globalist elite and the mainstream media.

• On one hand, it is nice that the Pinko Pope has seemingly taken a break from appeasing Chinese communist authorities, which he and the Vatican bureaucracy do really well. They allow China to veto Vatican personnel decisions and ignore imprisoned Jimmy Lai, the world’s most famous Catholic layman and dissident. On the other hand, the Pinko Pope has said Trump has “hands full of blood.” In so doing, he gives a pass to the Islamist terrorists who run Iran and were hoping to dominate or kill millions of Christians and Jews and Muslims when they got a nuclear weapon. Beyond wrong, this is moral degeneracy.

• The same goes for the Pinko Pope’s public campaign against the USA for enforcing immigration laws the same way every other country does. How many million Somali and Haitian immigrants is the Vatican prepared to accept or pay for?

• The Pinko Pope says his “peace appeals are rooted in the Gospel, not party politics.” LOL—we weren’t baptized yesterday liberal Leo.

• If the Pinko Pope wants to see how this all works out, he should take a look at the Episcopal Church. Once a fundamentally important American institution, it is now basically a Real Estate Investment Trust with a choir. Nice buildings, empty pews.

• Following this path…

Sermons that matter to people’s lives ==> Sermons about boring annual vacations to Scotland ==> Sermons advocating leftism

…leads to churches emptying or splitting off.

• American taxpayers should not be required to subsidize leftwing foreign political interference in U.S. politics. As with any political donations, those made to political churches—those engaged in pressure campaigns related to public policy—should not be tax deductible. Leftwing churches should not be allowed to raise everyone else’s property taxes by getting a pass on these either.

• Since the USA does not have ambassadors to foreign political parties, there should be no U.S. ambassador to the Vatican until there is a normal pope.