NEW ANALYSIS: What Everyone Is Missing About The Iran War
Donald Trump has again refused an offer by Iran to end the blockade of the Strait. His decision has nothing to do with nukes, and everything to do with his own crypto fortunes.
SUBSCRIPTION SPECIAL: 35% OFF ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTIONS FOREVER! THIS WEEKEND ONLY!
The Strait of Hormuz has been shut for four weeks. Brent crude is bouncing between $107 and $126. American gasoline is at $4.39. On Friday, the UAE walked out of OPEC—the first major-producer exit in sixty years.
Bloomberg’s headline on April 6 said the part the press hasn’t been saying out loud: “The petrodollar loop supporting the Treasury market is broken.”
Most analysts are calling this a tragedy. They’re wrong. It’s an exit strategy. The petrodollar isn’t dying by accident; it’s being euthanized to make room for a system that is faster, private, and—for the people in power—extraordinarily lucrative.
The Old Deal is Being Burned Down
For fifty years, we had a simple arrangement: Saudi Arabia priced oil in dollars and bought our debt (Treasuries) with the profits. This kept your mortgage cheap because there was always a foreign buyer for Uncle Sam’s bills.
That deal is over. The UAE’s walk-out and Saudi Arabia’s 80/20 retreat home are the final nails in the coffin. But look at the timing. The administration isn’t trying to save the old loop. They are letting it burn because they’ve built a new one.
The New Loop: The Lutnick Connection
If you want to know where the demand for U.S. debt is going to come from now that the Gulf is leaving, look at the stablecoin market. The 2025 GENIUS Act legally mandates that stablecoin issuers back their tokens with U.S. Treasuries.
Enter Howard Lutnick.
As the 41st Secretary of Commerce, Lutnick is the most powerful “booster” the crypto industry has ever had in Washington. But before he was in the Cabinet, he was the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald—the firm that manages the billions in U.S. Treasuries that back Tether, the world’s largest stablecoin.
The conflict is no longer a “potential” one; it’s baked into the math. Just yesterday, Senators Warren and Wyden demanded answers regarding a reported loan from Tether to a trust benefiting Lutnick’s children—a loan that allegedly helped finance his divestiture from Cantor. The loop is clear: Lutnick’s former firm manages Tether’s billions; Tether buys the Treasuries that the U.S. government needs to sell; and the GENIUS Act ensures that Tether must keep buying them to stay legal.
Senator Warren and Wyden’s letters follow Narativ’s explosive investigation into Lutnick’s ties to Tether, which we detailed in a series of stories several weeks ago. I read the entire letter expecting to see even a small nod to Narativ’s breakthrough investigation, but for some reason, they won’t explain. They refuse to acknowledge independent media sources like mine. Here’s an excerpt from the letter by Senators Wyden and Warren.
This series of events is even more troubling given your pre-existing ties to Tether. You have been described as “Tether’s most prominent booster in the US.”17 You “personally negotiated a relationship with [Tether], reviewing its books to ensure it had all the assets it claimed” in 2021, at a time when other financial institutions hesitated to do business with the firm given severe illicit finance concerns.18 You then participated in negotiations for Cantor Fitgerald to invest in “the holding company that owns the Tether stablecoin business” through a convertible bond reportedly valued up to $600 million that came with the right to a 5% equity stake.19 The coziness of your relationship with Tether prior to your nomination, and the favorable treatment Tether received in the GENIUS Act, make reports of a loan from Tether to your children’s trust even more troubling.
What’s more striking than their tireless attempts to undermine independent media, is that the actual story is far bigger than they realize. And it relates to the Iran war, the demise of the petrodollar and the rise of the petroyuan.
Paid Subscribers Can Read More On That After The Paywall. Subscription Special: 35% Off Annual Subscriptions Forever! This Weekend Only!
