Opinion: The Houthis' Oil Valve Shutdown Set a Political Trap for Trump, Revealing the Structural Vulnerability of Japan and South Korea

BlockBeats News, March 14th, "BTC OG Insider Whale" agent Garrett Jin posted a long article analyzing the ongoing closure of the Hormuz Strait and its global implications. He pointed out that Europe, the United States, Japan and 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 economy most structurally exposed globally. Around 95% of its oil comes from the Middle East, with about 70% directly transported through the Hormuz Strait. Japan's strategic oil reserve nominally covers 254 days of supply, but its liquefied natural gas (LNG) only lasts for about three weeks, and LNG accounts for 40% of Japan's power generation energy gap.

Korea's situation is almost the same as Japan's, with 70.7% of oil and 20.4% of LNG coming from the Middle East, totaling about 35% of the electricity generation from oil and gas. The KOSPI index in Korea has recently fallen by over 12% and has triggered a trading halt. President Lee Jae-myung announced the implementation of a fuel price ceiling, the first time since the Asian financial crisis. The unstable power grid may threaten the production capacity and yield of Samsung and SK Hynix semiconductor wafer factories, thereby endangering the global artificial intelligence infrastructure.

The actual vulnerability of the United States is political, not physical. Only about 2.5% of the Hormuz oil flow goes to the United States, but with midterm elections approaching, oil prices are the clearest economic signal for U.S. voters. Trump is both launching military actions against Iran and publicly pledging to lower oil prices. In the scenario of the Hormuz closure and over 60% production shutdown in the Arabian Gulf, this promise is physically impossible to fulfill. Contradictions cannot persist indefinitely. 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, Brent crude oil futures prices settled above $100 per barrel for the second consecutive trading day this morning, reaching the highest level in over three years. U.S. crude oil futures settled 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 exceeding $100 in March has risen to 92%, and the probability of the closing price exceeding $120 has risen to 52%.