Holy crap, is 43 days the most dangerous number for the U.S. right now? According to the latest chart from Bank of America: The current U.S. crude oil inventory, including commercial stockpiles and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, only amounts to about 43 days of supply based on current demand—a 45-year low. The long-term average is around 65 days. The U.S. is still producing nearly 14 million barrels of crude oil per day, but what this really means is: if there’s another major disruption in global supply, the U.S. has the thinnest inventory buffer it’s had since the 1980s to absorb the shock. And just at this moment, Iran holds the key to the Strait of Hormuz. About 20% of global oil trade passes through this strait. In the latest negotiations, Iran even proposed charging a 5%–7% transit fee on tankers passing through, which the U.S. has explicitly opposed. This ties into a very thought-provoking point raised by Jiang Xueqin: If the U.S. ultimately withdraws from the Middle East, countries like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE will have no choice but to negotiate directly with Iran for their energy and shipping security. Here’s the problem: What flows out of the Strait of Hormuz is oil, but what flows in is food. Currently, about 85% of food consumption in the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) countries depends on imports. Grain import dependency is around 90%, and for rice, it’s almost 100%. So Jiang Xueqin believes that what Iran truly controls isn’t just the number of barrels of oil per day. It controls a two-way lifeline for the Gulf countries: Energy flows out, food flows in. If the U.S. can no longer secure this shipping route, Gulf countries will have to buy some form of “security” from Iran. The payment method could be in U.S. dollars, or it could gradually shift to RMB, gold, digital currencies, or any settlement system Iran is willing to accept in the future. And that’s when the issue starts to ripple from energy to the U.S. dollar. For decades, the cycle has been: Gulf countries sell oil → earn U.S. dollars → sovereign wealth funds reinvest that capital back into the U.S. → buying U.S. Treasuries, stocks, tech companies, and Silicon Valley assets. But if Gulf countries in the future have to allocate more capital toward food security, military security, and new regional arrangements with Iran, will they still recycle their massive petrodollars back into U.S. tech and financial markets like they used to? This is one of the key reasons why Trump couldn’t easily walk away from the Middle East.