🇸🇬🇯🇵🇬🇧 It took 4 navies shooting at civilian ships, 1,500 uninsured tankers and talk of charging vessels to use Hormuz to make the world's shipping powers speak publicly for the first time since the 1960s.
18 countries, Greece, Japan, and Singapore among them, moving a fifth of everything traded on earth.
Their warning? Shipping lanes have been turned into weapons used to squeeze one another, and if ships stop moving the world runs out... of everything.
One rule has held the sea together since 1609: Mare liberum, free seas.
The ocean belongs to nobody and a cargo ship is nobody's enemy. This survived two world wars, and this year Russia, Ukraine, the U.S., and Iran all shot straight through it.
With that rule gone, the rule breakers moved in.
Over 1,500 tankers now sail with no real insurance and no flag state that answers the phone. One was hit by an explosion off Oman this summer carrying 800,000 barrels, and Oman may end up paying for a spill from a ship it never let in.
That's the opening nobody has moved on yet. Iran is close to a deal with Oman over Hormuz traffic, and the moment a fee is attached, every country sitting on a chokepoint learns the sea can be rented out.
80% of everything you own came by sea, and the countries that make it happen are telling you the system is running on nothing at all...
Source: Financial Times / Writer: Daniyal
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