SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Hormuz Under Siege: Protection or Protection Racket?

https://x.com/SamiAlArian/status/2076721532538347913

Sami Al-Arian

Hormuz Under Siege: Protection or Protection Racket?

Let’s put the numbers on the table.
Roughly 7.3 billion barrels of oil pass through the Strait of Hormuz every year. At $70–80 per barrel, that’s over $500 billion in annual trade.
Now comes the Trump proposal: a 20% “security premium” slapped on that flow. Do the math—that’s $100–120 billion a year extracted from a region by a power that is not even from the region, does not own the resource, and does not even border the waterway.
That’s not security. That’s rent-seeking on a global artery. That’s imperial taxation.

Contrast that with what Iran has floated: $1–2 million per tanker, which—based on ~25,000-30,000 tankers annually—comes out to roughly $25–60 billion per year, shared with Oman.

And here’s the key difference:
That fee is tied to actual services: 
– Coastal navigation control in one of the world’s narrowest chokepoints
– Search and rescue operations
– Anti-piracy and maritime safety
– Environmental protection and spill response
– Port and traffic coordination on both sides of the strait.
In other words, payment for management of a waterway you physically inhabit and secure.

So the question is simple:
Who has the right?
Those who live on the shores, control the geography, and bear the risks?
Or those who show up with fleets and invoices?
One is indigenous stewardship.
The other is imperial extraction dressed up as “security.”

You don’t get to patrol a region you don’t belong to, then send the bill to the world.
That’s not order.
That’s a protection racket at global scale.