Viewpoint: The Houthis' oil valve shutdown planted a political landmine for Trump, revealing the structural weaknesses of Japan and Korea

BlockBeats News, March 14th, "BTC OG Insider Whale" agent Garrett Jin wrote a long article analyzing the ongoing closure of the Hormuz Strait and its global impact. He pointed out that Europe, the United States, Japan, South Korea, India, etc., have different levels of resilience, and the crisis will erupt after the oil shortage reaches a threshold.

Japan is the major global economy most severely exposed to the structural risk, with about 95% of its oil coming from the Middle East, of which about 70% is transported directly through the Hormuz Strait. Japan's strategic oil reserves nominally cover 254 days of supply, but its liquefied natural gas (LNG) only lasts about three weeks, and LNG accounts for 40% of Japan's power generation fuel gap.

Korea's situation is almost the same as Japan's, with 70.7% of its oil and 20.4% of its LNG coming from the Middle East, totaling about 35% of the power grid's electricity generation. The KOSPI index in Korea has recently fallen by over 12% and has triggered a trading halt. President Lee In-myeong announced the implementation of a fuel price ceiling, the first time since the Asian financial crisis. Grid instability could threaten the production capacity and yield of Samsung and SK Hynix semiconductor wafer fabs, thus jeopardizing the global AI infrastructure.

The actual vulnerability of the United States is political, not physical. Only about 2.5% of the Hormuz oil flow is headed to the U.S., but with midterm elections approaching, oil prices are the clearest economic signal for American voters. Trump is simultaneously launching military actions against Iran and publicly promising to lower oil prices. In the scenario of the Hormuz closure and a production halt of over 60% in the Arabian Gulf, this promise is physically impossible to fulfill. Contradictions cannot persist indefinitely, so in the future, Trump will either face reduced political support for military action against Iran or lose credibility in economic management.

According to Bitget market data, this morning, Brent crude oil futures prices closed above $100 per barrel for the second consecutive trading day, reaching the highest level in over three years. U.S. crude oil futures closed near $99 per barrel, the highest level since July 2022.

According to PolyBeats monitoring, currently on the prediction market Polymarket, the probability of the CME WTI Crude Oil Futures "Crude Oil (CL)" closing price breaking through $100 in March has risen to 92%, and the probability of the closing price breaking through $120 has risen to 52%.