While Iran’s decision to close the Straits of Hormuz in response to the US-Israeli bombing campaign was understandable, after all it’s the biggest point of leverage the IRGC-controlled nation has left (it is certainly more understandable than bombing all of its Gulf neighbors in the process pushing them from being on the fence to being staunchly anti-Iran), there was always a bit of a glitch in Tehran’s calculus: as we showed the day the war broke out, the biggest clients of Gulf exporting nations by far are China, India, Korea and Japan, namely Asian countries which – with the exception of Japan – are hardly allies of the US. Therefore, the countries that would be hit the hardest were those Pacific rim nations that would buy millions of barrels of oil daily from Gulf countries before the war, and now find that oil indefinitely blocked behind the Strait. While prices are fungible, the biggest loser from a Hormuz closure in terms of actual physical oil is China which is the main destination of the 13.1mm barrels of oil that passes through the Strait every day https://t.co/FwWVsHiwpZ pic.twitter.com/ozXwXpo2El — zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 1, 2026 Goldman estimates the following effects on the […]