"MARITIME INTERDICTION: US Planetary Blockade Dominates Flow of Global Trade, Oil, and Gas," was created by independent journalist Richard Medhurst. It illustrates his argument that the United States is orchestrating a coordinated "global energy heist" to monopolize energy supplies and isolate its geopolitical rivals. Photo: Substack.
By Richard Medhurst – May 6, 2026
And Created The Petrogas-Dollar.
A forensic investigation into how Washington leveraged the war in Iran to replace Nord Stream, save the dollar, and establish total command over the world’s fuel from the Arctic to the Indian Ocean.
I covered in clinical detail.
But in the background, Washington have been quietly carrying out an armed robbery of the world’s oil and gas supply. All of it.
In just 90 days, the US have executed an energy blitzkrieg decades in the making:
And in the process, kidnapped and assassinated two heads of state. We are witnessing the transition of the United States from an empire into a lawless Pirate State, and the birth of what I call the Petrogas-dollar or LNG-Dollar.
The timeline of this campaign speaks for itself:
Chaos Is the Objective
In the past, the United States were very sensitive to oil shocks. Closing the Strait of Hormuz would have been a catastrophe, as the US couldn’t produce enough oil to meet demand.
But today, they are the world’s largest producers of oil, gas, and refined products, and the planet’s top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Many still buy into the old mantra that high oil prices are bad for the US, but the opposite is true. For the first time during a global shortage, the dollar isn’t crashing while gold surges — it’s the other way around. High energy prices aren’t a threat to Wall Street anymore — they are in fact the objective.
It’s no coincidence the US became the world’s #1 exporter of LNG after the Ukraine war. The gains were multifold: the US went from supplying just 9% of Europe’s energy to being Europe’s number one source of coal, oil, and LNG.
When Condoleezza Rice or Joe Biden said Europe should want to “depend” on US energy, and promised to “put an end” to Nord Stream — they meant it literally. By sanctioning Moscow and blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines, the US didn’t just hurt Russia — they turned Europe into a permanent US client, securing long term profits, and cementing the Petrogas-dollar.
The US is separated by two oceans, which makes delivering gas expensive. No one was ever going to buy American LNG with cheap Russian gas just next door. So the US killed off the competition.
Not just at Russia’s expense, but eating half of Qatar’s LNG share in the process:
Finishing the Job in Europe
The US, however, are now at full export capacity. They have the gas, but can’t ship it fast enough to satisfy the market that they cleared. Washington realized that they didn’t need to build more infrastructure to win. They just needed to delete the competition — again.
After the US, Qatar and Australia are the world’s largest suppliers of LNG and America’s biggest competitors.
Just as Washington used the cover of the Ukraine war, sanctions, and Nordstream bombings to force Russia out of Europe — similarly, they used the cover of the Iran war to finish off Qatar’s position as a global LNG player.
By forcing Doha to declare force majeure on March 4 within the first week of the war, then triggering the retaliatory strikes on Ras Laffan on March 18, Washington took the world’s largest gas field out of the picture — crippling Iran, and sidelining Qatar in one fell swoop.
The claim that Israel carried out this specific strike without informing Washington, is both politically and logistically impossible — made only more suspicious by Netanyahu and Trump’s attempts to profusely distance the White House from it.
Regardless, there can be little doubt that the US and Israel provoked this. At that point, they had spent 3 weeks working their way up the escalation ladder; bombing Iran around the clock, and gauging their responses. Moreover, Tehran had made it abundantly clear (as early as March 12), that any strikes on Iranian energy infrastructure would be met with “an eye for an eye”.
By crippling Qatar’s LNG capacity — even just partially — Washington hit three birds with one stone:
Then a week later, by some astronomical stroke of luck — Australia, the planet’s 2nd largest LNG supplier, were hit by a cyclone. This forced half of their LNG hubs offline. Nothing as catastrophic as Qatar, but horrible timing — or great timing if you’re selling US LNG.
Even if one chooses to look at these events as pure coincidence, the result is identical: in the span of just 9 days, the United States’ had its 2 largest competitors taken off the board, sending LNG prices soaring, and strengthening the LNG-Dollar.
And in yet another move of incredible timing, the day that Qatar’s LNG was taken out (March 18) was the same day the European Union banned Russian spot gas. As the name implies, this is gas one buys on the spot, i.e. in small quantities or without a contract — which can be useful in moments like these, when your Qatari and Australian suppliers are incapacitated. This, once again, would push buyers into the arms of the US.
The date of this ban was publicly known months in advance.
The Levantine Basin
The Levantine Basin is one of the largest gas fields in the world, located off the coast of Syria, Palestine, and Lebanon. The US—Israeli takeover of this area coincided perfectly with the Iran war, and Washington’s broader capture of the planet’s energy. It is with this that the US and Israel plan to connect Europe to a Mediterranean artery — a symmetrical replacement for the Nord Stream pipeline they killed off.
Sitting on Europe’s doorstep, the Levantine Basin could replace piped Russian gas entirely — a goal explicitly stated by Von der Leyen. This allows Washington to continue selling overpriced LNG by sea, while simultaneously securing a massive, second revenue stream.
In that vein, US company Chevron signed a $35bn gas deal with Israel in December — for which they began laying the groundwork almost 2 years before the Gaza genocide.
Everything unfolded like clockwork: first the Gaza ceasefire in October, then the Board of Peace, and finally, the Chevron gas deal.
Chevron would formalize the contracts and handle extraction, while the “Board of Peace” would serve as the humanitarian front.
This corporate body was railroaded through the United Nations Security Council, in order to provide the legal cover for Washington’s colonial plan — a plan which China and Russia inexplicably allowed to pass.
A closer examination of Resolution 2803 reveals only a brief mention of “water, electricity, and sewage”. The word “energy” or “gas” doesn’t appear once.
However, at the first Board of Peace Summit, oil and gas rigs suddenly appeared on the corporate advertisements of “New Gaza”.
This blatant messaging, coupled with the timing of Israel’s gas deal — and the fact that only Chevron operate in the area — lead us to the only logical conclusion: that they plan on robbing the gas fields of the Gaza Marine.
In October 2023, I warned that this war was never about hostages or Hamas — it was about plundering Gaza’s resources.
Not a second was wasted. The moment Washington and Chevron were ready to move, the war was sidelined and a “ceasefire” was suddenly on the table.
Syria were the next domino to fall. Chevron had barely even signed the Israel deal in December, when they already began moving on Syria’s oil and gas — with US Special Envoy Tom Barrack meeting the new Al-Qaeda-linked rulers that Washington helped install in Damascus.
By February 2026, it was a done deal, and the US could finally start picking clean the country’s offshore wealth.
Before the war, Syria were entirely self-sufficient in oil and gas. Today, that sovereignty is gone. Syrians are rationed to just a few hours of electricity a day and forced to buy their entire supply from Turkey — the very state that helped dismantle their own — while Chevron pipe Syria’s offshore wealth straight to Europe.
But the Chevron corporate blitzkrieg didn’t stop there.
As the Syria deal was being finalized, Chevron secured yet another gas deal with Greece that very same month, then another with Cyprus in April. Everything was linked.
Washington had now constructed an American artery, running from the Levant, to Cyprus, to Greece. The gas, the plumbing and the leases all set — not to mention, an additional LNG exit via Egypt.
The northern gas corridor from Russia was now dead, and a new one — almost perfectly symmetrical — built in its place by a US corporation. The final nail in Nord Stream’s coffin.
In total, the entire basin is worth over half a trillion dollars — surpassing the combined profits of BP, Shell, Chevron, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies from the entire Ukraine war. These untapped reserves have been kept on ice by the Israeli military, effectively acting as private mercenaries for Corporate America.
It’s no coincidence that all the ports along this coast have been destroyed except Israel’s. By blockading Gaza and crippling the ports in Beirut and Syria, they have ensured Levantines cannot touch their own inheritance — while holding the door open for Chevron to collect.
With Qatar and Iran sidelined and the Mediterranean secured, on the other side of the planet the US Navy were already clearing the way for Chevron to seize the world’s largest oil fields.
Targeting China’s Oil and Gas
Controlling Europe and weakening Russia was, however, only the beginning. The real target is China.
China are too big and competitive for the US to destroy. Washington’s goal is to control them instead.
By cutting off Beijing’s most vital fuel sources, the US want to force a total dependency on American energy. This creates the leverage needed to guarantee the Dollar’s survival while undermining BRICS, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and multipolarity.
China receive around 1/3 of their oil from Venezuela, Russia, and Iran combined —partnerships they consider strategic. The United States proceeded to target all three in the last 90 days with increasing escalation.
Venezuela (Operation Southern Spear)
The blockade began in September 2025, when a US fleet were deployed to the Caribbean under the pretext of “fighting narcotics.” Acting under Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM), Washington positioned these ships right on Venezuela’s borders, effectively encircling the country.
By December, the fleet had revealed their true purpose by openly pirating Venezuelan oil. This campaign culminated in the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro in January and the capture of the world’s largest oil reserves.
The US navy parked their ships on Venezuela’s doorstep, where they remain to this day. They decide which oil tankers are allowed in and out, and of course, it’s mainly Chevron.
Meanwhile, the US government — having strong-armed the local administration into submission — proceed to formalize this theft by issuing Treasury waivers and General Licenses to their own corporations, as if they own the rights to the oil themselves.
Trump bragged a few days later (at the “Board of Peace” summit, of all places) that the US now control 62% of the world’s oil. This takeover achieved two critical goals for the Pirate State: first, it immediately cut China off from a vital energy partner, and second, it secured a second strategic petroleum reserve to offset the chaos Washington were about to unleash on Russia and Iran.
Russia (Operation Arctic Sentry)
In the last months, US and NATO forces have been literally hunting down Russian oil and gas ships across the entire planet, from the Mediterranean Sea, to the Black Sea, Baltic Sea, Caribbean, Arctic, North Atlantic, and Indian Ocean.
Russia provide 17% of China’s total oil imports. While some is piped, the vast majority leaves by sea. This includes the critical medium Urals blend that China’s independent “teapot” refineries rely on. Because these exports leave from Russia’s western ports in the Baltic Sea, they are particularly vulnerable due to their proximity to NATO.
The US knew that China would immediately look to Russia to replace the oil lost in Venezuela — so to cut them off, Washington redeployed key strike groups from the Caribbean to the Arctic and Atlantic. This is precisely why NATO quietly established “Operation Arctic Sentry” in February, making no effort to conceal its true purpose:
“China’s interest in the Arctic is also growing, as Beijing seeks to gain access to energy, critical minerals and sea lines of communication. Furthermore, increased Russia-China cooperation has strategic and operational implications for NATO’s deterrence and defence posture in the region.” —NATO Arctic Security Brief
Simply put: it’s an oil and gas embargo. NATO are openly admitting that their goal is to sever Beijing’s “access to energy, critical minerals”, and disrupt their growing trade with Russia. None of these things are security issues. They are geostrategic and economic.
This explains why Donald Trump is so interested in Greenland and Canada, and why the Royal Navy deployed a carrier strike group last month to the Greenland-Iceland-UK (GIUK) corridor — and again this week. The goal is to corner Russian tankers in the Baltic and the Arctic before they are even able to leave.
This passage has been a critical chokepoint since the Cold War; it was once the only way Russian submarines could reach the Atlantic. NATO are now returning there with a different goal in mind: harassing trade along the Northern Sea Route (NSR), Russia’s primary shortcut to Asia — and in anticipation of the future Transpolar Sea Route (TSR).
The media described the launch of Arctic Sentry as a diplomatic “off-ramp” to “defuse tensions” between the US and Greenland. Clearly this mission wasn’t designed to “defuse” anything, but instead a Trojan Horse to move NATO troops into position to implement a blockade — with the participation of many Western navies, including France, Sweden, Spain, and Britain, all actively helping Washington pirate Russian oil.
Venezuela Welcomes More Repatriated Citizens; US SOUTHCOM Reaches 178 Extrajudicial Executions
When I first laid out my “Pirate State” thesis in March, only Russian tankers were being hit at the time. But throughout the course of this investigation, these attacks escalated from hitting ships, to hitting refineries and export hubs.
Russia to slash oil output by 300,000 to 400,000 barrels per day — the sharpest production cut in 6 years. The latest OPEC report confirms Russia sit 400,000 BPD below their official quota, which shows that these strikes are having a definitive effect on the ground.
And that’s not even counting what was lost/pirated at sea.
In the 4 years of the Ukraine war, Russia’s energy infrastructure has never been struck this deep nor on this scale. While the campaign began in Autumn 2025, the Blitz on Russian energy only truly ramped up once Washington had secured Venezuela and launched the war on Iran.
The calculated timing, and global scale of this pincer move show that the Pirate State were waiting until they had secured their own strategic reserve before moving in for the kill — achieving two goals at once: interdiction of China’s supply, and consolidation of the global market.
Interactive: Hover over the peaks to see the breakdown of strikes on Russian energy
Iran (Operation Epic Fury)
Iran export around 60% of the oil they produce, and like Russia and Venezuela, ship the majority to China at a discount. Iran account for 11% of China’s seaborne crude imports. With shipments from Venezuela and Russia being sabotaged by the US, a steady supply from Iran became even more critical — and Beijing increased their imports accordingly.
As the Strait of Hormuz is under Iran’s control, these shipments should in fact be prioritized as China is a strategic partner. However, the very nature of a war ensures chaos, and Tehran’s experimental toll booth system — like all infrastructure — is being systemetically targeted by the US-Israeli aggression, creating a backlog.
By sinking the IRIS Dena more than 3,200 km from the Persian Gulf, the Pirate State have signaled their intentions to all vessels in the Global South — armed or unarmed, inside or outside the theatre of war. Unfortunately, pricing cargo in Yuan isn’t going to suffice with a Pirate State at the gates, robbing and sinking vessels at random.
The US have no intention of deescalating. Even during the “ceasefire”, War Secretary Hegseth explicitly declared that Washington will not be leaving these waters — ceasefire or not, confirming what I forewarned: that the US are going to apply their Arctic and Venezuelan model on Iran.
The US—Israeli assault, coupled with the disruption to Qatari LNG, have caused China’s LNG imports to plummet to an 8-year low.
Chinese government figures (GACC) show that total natural gas imports plummeted 16.3% from February to March — or if compared to last year, a 10.7% year-on-year drop. Since pipelines are running at 100% capacity, this drop is all but certain due to the US global blockade and the clearest indicator yet that Washington’s wars and blockades are constricting China’s supply.
Russia and Iran hold the world’s largest proven reserves of natural gas, yet their ability to mitigate China’s deficit is physically constrained.
Iran consume 94% of the gas they produce, and their remaining export potential was already damaged by the recent strikes. Moreover, Russia are already running their primary gas and oil pipelines to China (Power of Siberia and ESPO, respectively) at full capacity. Power of Siberia 2 is still years away from completion, and Russia lack the tanker fleet — Arctic-class or otherwise — to help China make up for these losses by sea.
Even if these ships were available, the intensity of the US-backed strikes has caused insurance premiums on Russian tankers to skyrocket, almost defeating the entire purpose of buying their oil at a discount.
Multi-layered Sabotage and Multi-layered Gains
For the time being, this means that all 3 strategic suppliers of Chinese oil are being actively disrupted or attacked by the United States.
These attacks are even more costly when taking into account the following:
Teapots designed for heavy crude
China’s “teapot” refineries are specifically designed to process the sour crude sent from Venezuela, breaking down the heavy, thick sludge and turning it into the diesel that powers China’s high-tech industries.
While Russian and Iranian oil are chemically different — and easier to refine — China received them at such a discount that it was worth their while to refine them using the teapots.
Discounted oil
It’s not just the physical and technical ability of the teapots that made them a perfect match for these kinds of oil — it’s the price. These varieties were supplied to China at a discount, or in the case of Venezuela, as a form of debt repayment. Obtaining identical blends, and at the same competitive price is practically impossible.
First, Washington are leaving the teapot refineries without the heavy “sludge” they were specifically designed to cook. Second, by removing the cheap Russian and Iranian alternatives, they are making it financially impossible to fire the refineries up at all. This creates a cascade effect of sabotage on China’s economy, of which the United States are undoubtedly acutely aware.
While China can recover in the long term and their energy consumption is diverse, solar and coal alone can’t power their industrial base to its absolute potential. Even with massive reserves, these cannot compare in the long run with the impact of having a Pirate State attack their 3 most vital energy partners in the span of 90 days.
Most governments would consider Washington’s behavior an act of war, or at best treat the issue as a national security threat — and they would be right.
Rerouted to the Gulf of Mexico
To add insult to injury, the US have rerouted the seized Venezuelan crude to their own Gulf of Mexico refineries. This ensures a cascade of gains for Washington:
Cuba
In addition to cutting off China from Venezuela, the US are using their control of the world’s largest oil fields to close in on Cuba and threaten them with regime change.
Half of Cuba’s energy grid was dependent on this oil. Immediately after kidnapping Maduro, Washington cut Havana off, plunging the country into darkness, and worsening the 60-year siege they have laid on the Caribbean nation. This is further proof that capturing Venezuela’s oil wasn’t merely about corporate greed, but for strategic, geopolitical purposes.
While the US “allowed” a single Russian tanker to reach Havana, and also issued a 30-day reprieve for Iranian and Russian oil, these acts shouldn’t be mistaken for signs of de-escalation. They are merely pressure valves designed to stabilize global markets while Washington complete the hostile takeover.
Transition to a Naval Power
The United States are undergoing a radical transformation to a naval power, evidenced not just by their military strategy, but by a total restructuring of the global energy market.
Calling this a global blockade is not a figure of speech. Geographically, it encompasses half the planet — stretching from Greenland to Venezuela to Iran — with one objective: fuel interdiction.
This blockade is so homogenous it’s often literally the same ships and crew jumping from one theatre to the next. This armada is led by the USS Gerald R. Ford but also includes the USS Iwo Jima, and the destroyers Churchill and Spruance. It operates as a single, mobile force. Whenever needed, their command is simply rubber-stamped and shifted between USSOUTHCOM, USEUCOM, and USCENTCOM. The Ford, for example, participated in the capture of Venezuela, as well as the assault on Iran, right after finishing a deployment Arctic.
Maritime Extortion Network
It’s not just the US military that has a global fleet. While most of Russia or Norway’s gas is piped, US LNG is sent by ship. This makes it mobile — and expensive, which is why Europe and Asia wouldn’t buy it had they not been forced to.
With the competition now physically knocked out, Europe and Asia are forced to bid for overpriced American LNG on the spot market. To visualize how cut-throat this business is, you can see LNG ships stopping mid-journey, and changing course to the highest bidder in real time. Whoever is willing to pay the most, wins.
Maritime Action Plan (MAP)
This document was published by the White House in February 2026 — in the same period as every other major event of this blitzkrieg. It is a strategic policy blueprint outlining America’s transition to a naval power. It is called the Maritime Plan of Action (MAP) and is in fact a follow-up to a document from 2025, titled “RESTORING AMERICA’S MARITIME DOMINANCE” — in case anyone still didn’t get the message.
SHIPS for America Act of 2025 (S. 1541)”, which establishes a clear legal framework to revitalize the US Fleet. (“The Fleet” includes not just military ships, but LNG and oil vessels — showing the strategic weight the US attributes to these assets).
It mandates that a growing percentage of strategic cargo be eventually carried on US-built vessels. This includes the entire fleet of LNG traders — a ridiculous amount of ships, given the US are already the world’s #1 exporter, and just further consolidated their control over the market.
It also applies to any cargo entering the country, including oil. Around 40% of oil refined in the States is sourced abroad — so once again, the US leverage their position as the world’s top refiner to extort the planet and generate an additional windfall of cash.
Those who don’t make the investment in a US naval shipyard will be forced to pay a tax. Either way, they will cough up something to Uncle Sam.
This transition to a maritime power is so intense that just this week, Trump summarily fired his Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan. His crime? Not building The Fleet fast enough.
The United States are clearly confident in their geostrategic position, and betting on total global energy dominance — and using that to double and triple their revenue streams, years if not decades down the line (again, think “multi-layered gains”).
The transformation is just as much economic as it is military. And in typical Wall Street fashion, they are going to achieve this transition to a naval power by making someone else foot the bill.
Protection Racket
Finally, Donald Trump announced what essentially amounts to a bodyguard service; offering to protect ships at a “very reasonable price” via the US Navy. This adds the final layer to the monopoly in the form of a protection racket.
There’s no need to really point out the irony of this: as the only actual threat to freedom of navigation on the high seas is the very power offering to “protect” it.
Very often, the US aren’t even capturing the cargo on these ships, but just sinking them outright. However, when they do board them, they literally use or sell the cargo off for loot — like pirates — and justify the sale inside the US legal system by citing their own OFAC sanctions. Yet none of these ships ever entered the US or their waters. Moreover, US sanctions are worthless outside the States, and actually illegal under international law, as Alena Douhan, the UN Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures, told me back in 2021.
Together, all of these things ensure multiple revenue streams for Washington, and total control over the energy supply and production chain at every point. By using piracy, made-up sanctions, and their dominant market position the US are extorting the planet to pay for the very fleet attacking them — a transition from The Empire’s “rules-based international order” into a lawless Pirate State.
A Strategic Shift
The petrodollar is no more. It has been quietly replaced by a far more lethal successor: the Petrogas-Dollar, at the exact moment when everyone thought the US were in decline.
Everything we are seeing today is the result of decades-long planning between Washington and Wall Street.
Trump has been putting the pieces out there, but no one has been able to piece the puzzle together until now.
The “Donroe Doctrine” is widely misunderstood. Many think it’s just a rehash of Monroe, or simply about controlling the Western Hemisphere. But it’s not. It’s about turning the Western Hemisphere into something else. The goal is to make the market come to America, and move the world’s energy corridor to the Western Hemisphere.
These plans are not exclusively Trump’s, nor were they cobbled together overnight. They are the fruits of the Bush administration and neoconservatives like Dick Cheney.
In 2001, while serving as Vice President, Cheney held 40 secret meetings with energy giants to author America’s strategy for the 21st century. The White House fought all the way to the Supreme Court to try and keep these meetings secret. If you’re picturing something like a shady gathering of executives, you’re not too far off: the heads of literally every major oil company were in the room with Cheney and his aides.
The blueprint born from those secret meetings was a strategic document called the National Energy Policy (NEP). Even 25 years ago, the White House knew that capturing Venezuela’s oil reserves was key to “diversifying” the US’ oil supply:
“The ongoing development of so-called ‘heavy oil’ reserves in the Western Hemisphere is an important factor that promises to significantly enhance global oil reserves and production diversity.” — National Energy Policy, 2001
Building up the Western Hemisphere and US domestic production is a core pillar of the NEP. The document effectively treats oil imports from countries the US dislike almost as a national security threat:
“…ever more reliant on foreign suppliers. On our present course, America 20 years from now will import nearly two of every three barrels of oil — a condition of increased dependency on foreign powers that do not always have America’s interests at heart.” — National Energy Policy, 2001
A “threat” that the US solve by either stealing the oil or blowing it up so others can’t use it.
This blueprint wasn’t the work of random politicians. This was a Big Oil administration through and through: Cheney had just come from Halliburton; the Bush family wealth was built in the Texas oil industry, and Condoleezza Rice had spent a decade on the board of Chevron — yes, the same Chevron that just gobbled up Venezuela, Syria, and Palestine’s wealth in 90 days. (Chevron actually named an oil tanker after her, the SS Condoleezza Rice).
In 2003, Cheney and Bush invaded Iraq for oil. The US attempted to hide this theft behind the mask of “democracy.” Back then, Washington literally needed the oil — but today, the US is a dominant producer and Trump isn’t seizing Venezuela’s resources to survive a shortage. Nevertheless, the overarching goal is identical: consolidate a strategic second reserve. By abandoning the theater of “nation-building,” the US military have shifted into a pure pirate force to ensure the Western Hemisphere becomes the world’s sole energy corridor.
The Western Hemisphere: The New Middle East
By making the Western Hemisphere the capital of oil and gas, this fixes many of the problems the Petrodollar had.
In the past, the Petrodollar was too dependent on political events in the Middle East. But with this strategy, the US control the entire process without having to rely on proxies in the Middle East, be that Israel, the Gulf Kingdoms, or actual US army bases.
Whether it’s oil shocks, Hormuz being shut, or the conflict in Palestine — these can no longer upset the dollar’s stability, because the entire process — from extraction to refinery — is now done locally in the Western Hemisphere by US firms.
In 1944, Bretton Woods established the current global capitalist financial order. The dollar was pegged to gold until the 1970s, then unlinked and unofficially pegged to Gulf oil.
Today, we are witnessing yet another revolution of the Dollar on the same scale, but pegged to something far stronger: US domestic gas and oil production — plus the reserves the US steals through war and piracy, thereby creating the Petrogas-dollar.
LNG-Dollar
The LNG-Dollar or Petrogas-dollar isn’t just stronger because it is safely tucked away in the Gulf of Mexico. As the name indicates, it is the addition of LNG/natural gas that makes it more diverse, and stable.
Through LNG, the US have made Europe’s survival dependent on the Dollar, and the captive market they created after 2022 is precisely what turned Washington into the world’s #1 exporter.
And now, after their war on Iran — whether one sees it as intentional or just a convenient side-effect — the fact is, the US are going to eat an even larger share of the global LNG market.
The US already hold such a dominant position in natural gas that when they start wars, consumer prices barely even flinch in America — yet that same gas in Europe and Asia spikes and costs a fortune.
As the graph demonstrates, there’s no such thing as a “global” energy crisis. The crisis is limited to America’s competitors.
Even as oil prices go up, the US is shielded from the worst of it. As the #1 producers and refiners, US energy giants can’t really lose. They simply mark up the oil, and pocket the higher profits. Crucially, those profits are in USD, and remain locked inside the US economic circuit.
Right now these giants are raking in their biggest profits — ever — and their share valuations are at record highs. The current war in Iran is factually their most profitable period to date.
51.1%, up from 49.25% in February. This confirms that the world is being physically forced back into the dollar to pay for the only energy left on the market.
Traditional oil and market analysts fail to conceive the strategic value of what is happening. They think the world begins and ends with midterm elections and disgruntled Americans paying double at the gas station. This is not how Wall Street executives think. The only “lesson” they learned after Iraq and 2008, was that they can pretty much get away with anything they like and no one is going to stop them. They are emboldened predators.
All in all, the US strategy ensures that everyone is
Which leads to the most lethal point:
Deindustrialization
By making oil and gas expensive in Europe and Asia, the US force companies to choose between closing shop or moving to America.
This process was kickstarted during Ukraine, crippling many European industries from German steel to French glass, and will only intensify as the US complete the hostile takeover. Indeed, this strategy cannibalizes friend and foe alike, and Wall Street are fine with that.
This industrial exodus also results in a massive flight of capital. As factories and assets are physically transferred from Europe and Asia to the US, each company take their capital — cash, stocks, credit — out of their home country and dump it into the American economy. This shifts the global economy’s center of gravity toward America, reinforcing the Petrogas-dollar.
According to US Treasury (TIC) data, the physical volume of dollars entering the country didn’t just grow — it spiked in lockstep with the expansion of the energy wars.
Between January and February 2026, the net flow of capital into the US completely switched up. In January, capital was leaving the US with a deficit of $25 billion. But a month later in February, cash began flowing into the US — not out — in a surplus of $184.5 billion — and this is during the height of the chaos caused by the US across Russia and the Middle East.
That’s a $209.5 billion swing in a single month — simply unheard of.
Even more revealing is the fact that most of this capital is coming from private foreign investors, not foreign governments or central banks. In February alone, net private inflows reached $166.5 billion. That means people are proactively choosing to park their cash in the US because the Pirate State are causing so much chaos everywhere, that they de facto appear as the only safe bet.
This record private capital is split into two streams:
Companies don’t get up and leave every day — so once they’re in the US, they’re very unlikely to move again for a long time. That capital then remains inside the US economic circuit, and those companies will do business exclusively in dollars — once again, strengthening the Greenback.
Indeed, the US are not only relocating the planet’s energy corridor to the Western Hemisphere, but its industrial base as well. One naturally leads to the other; operating like a domino effect that reinforces the Petrogas-dollar.
To summarize, the strategy is quite Machiavellian, and works in a cascade.
In the past, the US toppled governments to take their oil; today, they use their own oil to topple governments.
In the Ukraine war, the US didn’t need to take control of Russia’s oil and gas at the source. Through sanctions, sabotage, and piracy, they succeeded in locking Russia out of the market, and forcing industrial giants to move to America. If that was the trial run, the plan worked, and the US are now building on that, and scaling up the template globally.
A case in point is the curious fate of Qatar. ExxonMobil and QatarEnergy — who are partners in the Ras Laffan refinery that was crippled in March — clearly knew when to pull their chips from the Middle East and move them to the US. On April 22, they celebrated their first LNG shipment from Golden Pass, Texas, where Qatar hold a majority 70% stake. Safe to say, at these wartime prices they’ll be making back everything they lost in the Gulf several times over, and all while operating safely inside the US economic circuit.
BRICS and De-dollarization
What does the Petrogas-dollar mean for the Global South?
Following the 2022 Nord Stream bombings and the sanctions on Russia, multipolarity began to thrive as a matter of necessity. Russia pivoted East, selling its oil and gas in Rubles; and we saw economies, payment systems (Mir, Shitab) and banking systems (CIPS, SPFS, SEPAM) linked between Moscow, Tehran, Caracas and Beijing.
In that same vein, Iran are now charging a toll for safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz, priced in dollar alternatives like the Yuan.
These are all the right moves, geopolitically. But for de-dollarization to work, trade has to be physically possible. You can’t have a Pirate State attacking cargo in transit or blowing up your natural resources.
The US strategy has shifted from unilateral sanctions to physical, siege warfare. Washington no longer merely exclude countries from Western markets; they physically prevent them from trading with each other.
This siege isn’t limited to piracy at sea; it is also a blockade of rival trade corridors. By toppling the government in Damascus and destroying Syria’s ports in Latakia and Tartous, the US hit several birds with one stone:
In the last weeks, the Iraqi resistance succeeded in kicking out the NATO occupation after more than two decades. This is vital for the New Silk Road, as Iraq’s railway was planned to connect Asia directly to the Mediterranean. But while Iraq have made headway, the challenge is far from over.
Knocking out airbases is critical, but it won’t be enough. The Resistance must realize that Washington are transitioning away from their model of land-based occupation, toward a model of global piracy and maritime interdiction. As the US rely increasingly on raids, blockades, and remote-control chaos — the airbases become less relevant. If the battle moves to the water, the strategy of the Resistance must also shift accordingly.
What Iran Must Do to Win
Purely from a game theory perspective, Iran, Russia, and China have a handful of strategic moves left on the board:
In the cold math of game theory, the last option is the most effective move — but also the most likely to start World War III. We take it for granted that hostile action against the US mainland is an automatic red line. This strikes at the root of a profound strategic asymmetry: how is it that Washington can burn refineries and target heads of state without the same fear of reprisal?
For whatever reason, Russia, China, and Iran have failed to establish — and maintain — a credible deterrent against Western aggression. It’s not about oil or currency at this point, but about sovereignty. China and Russia’s nuclear arsenals are almost rendered useless through inaction, which is an extraordinary paradox in its own right.
Throughout the opening of this war, the Resistance Axis have been punching ten times above their weight. But while they have degraded assets worth billions, the US Navy are already moving to a model of absolute maritime interdiction. Leveling a radar station or an airstrip is a tactical victory, but it does nothing to stop a naval blockade parked opposite the Strait of Hormuz. Washington don’t even want the current trade routes to exist anymore let alone function. They are chipping away at them in order to move the planet’s energy corridor to the Western Hemisphere — carving out the maritime trade routes and energy policies of a century to come. The ice hasn’t even melted yet, and they’re already blockading the Arctic Transpolar route.
For the Pirate State, who have promised to rain “death and destruction from the sky all day long”, no cost is too high in pursuit of these goals — and it is precisely why Iran should not underestimate their capacity for violence.
This is why military defeat and economic defeat are not the same thing. As long as Iran, and the Global South, continue fighting the US on their own soil they will never defeat the Pirate State.
The entire US military doctrine is built on the pillar of never fighting wars at home, in order to shield their population and industrial base. It is the same logic behind moving the energy corridor. They are relocating the planet’s capital of oil and gas to the Western Hemisphere for the exact same reason they fight their wars in the Middle East: to keep the engine of the empire shielded between two oceans.
Humiliating the US thousands of kilometres away from their industrial base has been done before — in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now in Iran — yet the Empire lives to pirate another day. As long as Wall Street feel they are untouchable — US imperialism will persist.
This investigation is featured in the documentary film “Birth of the Petrogas-Dollar and the Pirate State” by journalist Richard Medhurst. .
Richard Medhurst is an independent journalist. He is half English, half Syrian, and covers international politics on his YouTube channel, with over 86,000 subscribers.
