#7 Iran Is Letting Ships Through the Strait — If They Pay in Yuan
First, Coming up later in this episode — something is hiding underneath every Iran headline you have seen for the past month. It has nothing to do with missiles. It has nothing to do with diplomats. It has everything to do with your wallet and the future of the American dollar. Nobody on cable news is explaining it to you. I will. That's at the end. Stay with me.
SEGMENT ONE: DELTA JUST TOLD CONGRESS TO SIT DOWN
Back in Episode 6 I told you about the DHS shutdown. I told you about the TSA officers working without pay. The resignations. The lines at the airports. The human cost of Congress using working people as bargaining chips. If you heard that episode you already know the backstory. So I'm not going to repeat it.
What I am going to tell you is what happened since then. Because this week the shutdown stopped being a slow bleed and started becoming a crisis. And the most satisfying moment of the whole ugly five-week mess happened Tuesday morning when Delta Air Lines looked at Congress and said — you did this. Now sit in it.
Delta suspended all VIP services for members of Congress flying their airline. No airport escorts. No priority rebooking. No seat upgrades. No special treatment of any kind. You want to fly Delta? You stand in the same security line you created. Delta CEO Ed Bastian had already gone on CNBC the week before and called the situation inexcusable. Called TSA workers being used as political chits ridiculous. Said Delta was outraged. Tuesday, the airline stopped talking and started acting.
And here is what I want Congress to understand. That clock should not reset the day you finally pass a funding bill. The TSA officers went without a full paycheck for five weeks. Congress should go without airport perks for the same five weeks — minimum. Not one day less. You created the problem. You live with the consequences for exactly as long as the people you created it for did. That is accountability.
Now let me bring you up to speed on everything that has changed since we last talked about this.
The numbers are worse. More than three hundred and sixty-six TSA officers have quit since the shutdown started. Not retired. Quit. They walked away from federal careers because they could not afford to keep showing up. The officers who stayed are calling out sick at double-digit rates at major checkpoints. And the lines have gotten longer. Let me repeat that, Longer.
Then Sunday night at LaGuardia Airport, an Air Canada Express jet landed on Runway 4 and hit a Port Authority fire truck that had been cleared to cross. Both pilots were killed. Forty-one people injured. Nine still hospitalized with serious injuries when I'm recording this. LaGuardia was shut down for most of Monday. Newark's tower was evacuated the same morning because of a burning smell in an elevator. Two of New York's three major airports were simultaneously not fully operational on a Monday morning.
I am not telling you the shutdown caused that crash. The investigation will determine what caused that crash. What I am telling you is this — when you run a critical safety system at less than full capacity for five straight weeks, when the people responsible for it are worn down and working without pay and calling out sick at record rates, the margin for error gets smaller. And smaller margins mean things that should not happen start happening.
President Trump deployed ICE agents to fourteen airports to cover security gaps. The unions objected. Democrats objected. The argument was that ICE agents aren't trained for TSA work. And that is true — they are not running the scanners. What they are doing is handling crowd control, guarding exits, freeing trained TSA officers from tasks that don't require their specific expertise so those officers can focus on the actual screening. Is it the right long-term solution? No. Is it better than leaving checkpoints undermanned while Congress argues? Yes. Trump found a workaround. Schumer complained about the workaround. Schumer is the reason the workaround was necessary. Both things are true.
Markwayne Mullin was confirmed as DHS Secretary Monday night. He replaces Kristi Noem. The first thing he is walking into is a department that has been dark for five weeks. During his confirmation hearing he said something I thought was the most honest assessment of this whole situation from anyone in Washington. He said we are playing with fire. He is right. And the fire is no longer a metaphor.
Here is where the clock stands. March twenty-seventh. Next Friday. Congress is scheduled to leave for a two-week Easter recess. Senate Majority Leader John Thune has publicly said he cannot see them taking a break with the government still shut down. That is the right position. Hold it. Because if Congress walks out that door without a deal and comes back after Easter to a nation of furious travelers stuck in spring break airport lines — That is a political catastrophe. And they will have earned every bit of it.
There are signs of movement. Senate Republicans are putting together a plan to fund most of DHS while leaving certain ICE operations out — an attempt to get enough Democratic votes to clear the sixty-vote filibuster threshold. It came out of a White House meeting Monday night. Senator Katie Britt said they had found a solution but wouldn't say what it was. Thune said no immediate announcement. The House has not been looped in yet — so even if the Senate moves, the two chambers still have to sync up. Nothing is done until it is done. And in Washington, things that look done often aren't.
Trump has also tied the DHS deal to the SAVE America Act — the voter ID and election integrity bill. He wants both together. Democrats won't touch the SAVE Act. So the president has a leverage play running that is making an already complicated negotiation even more complicated. I understand the logic. If you are going to give Democrats something they want — DHS funding — you extract something you want in return. That is how negotiations work. The risk is that you squeeze too hard and the deadline passes without a deal. March twenty-seventh.
Let me say this plainly. Democrats shut this down to force changes to ICE enforcement. ICE is fully funded and operating normally through money locked in last year. The shutdown they created to stop ICE did not stop ICE. What it stopped was TSA paychecks, FEMA responses, and Coast Guard operations. The people who have nothing to do with the political fight are the ones paying the price. That is collateral damage on working Americans to score a political point. Own it. Fix it. Before Friday. Or come midterms you will rue the day.
Delta said it best without saying a word. They pulled the perks. That is what the rest of America has been waiting for someone to do. Lets hope all arlines follow suite.
Everyone knows TSA workers are not political chits. Congress is about to find out the rest of us are done pretending otherwise.
EVERYBODY'S THROWING THEM OUT
There is a pattern developing in the Middle East that is not getting nearly enough attention because the war itself is so loud, and so constant that the quieter story underneath it keeps getting buried.
Iran is being expelled from its own neighborhood. One country at a time. You heard me right.
Saudi Arabia threw out Iran's military attaché and four embassy staff members — given twenty-four hours to leave the kingdom. This after an Iranian drone hit Yanbu — Saudi Arabia's last open oil export terminal after Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz. The Saudi foreign ministry said the little trust that remained in Iran has been completely shattered. Those are not just bureaucratic words. That kingdom telling them the relationship is over.
Qatar declared Iran's military and security attachés persona non grata and ordered them out within twenty-four hours. This after Iranian missiles hit the Ras Laffan industrial city — the world's largest liquefied natural gas facility. Qatar, which has historically tried to stay neutral, tried to stay out of the fight, tried to be the region's dealmaker and mediator — Qatar finally said enough.
Britain summoned Iran's ambassador to London after two Iranian men were charged with spying on members of the Jewish community for Iran's intelligence service. This is the same week that four ambulances belonging to Hatzolah — a Jewish charity that serves both Jews and non-Jews — were firebombed in Golders Green. A group with suspected Iranian state links claimed responsibility. MI5 is investigating. Britain has not yet expelled the ambassador but summoning him is not a courtesy call. That is a formal diplomatic warning.
And then Lebanon. This one matters more than all the others put together. Lebanon is not a neutral country when it comes to Iran. Lebanon is the country where Hezbollah operates. Hezbollah is Iran's most important proxy. Iran has been running operations through Lebanon for decades. Lebanon and Iran are not friends — they are in business together. And Lebanon just declared Iran's ambassador persona non grata and gave him until Sunday to leave.
When your own proxy state kicks out your ambassador, you have lost the neighborhood. Full stop.
Now let's talk about what Iran is saying publicly versus what they are actually doing. Because there is a gap between those two things that tells you everything you need to know about where this war actually stands.
Trump announced Monday that the United States and Iran had held two days of productive conversations toward a complete resolution of hostilities. He said there were fifteen points of agreement. He said Iran means business. He said they want to settle. He paused the five-day deadline on striking Iranian power plants to give the talks time to work. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have been in the room.
Iran's foreign ministry publicly called it fake news. Called Trump's announcement an attempt to manipulate oil and financial markets. Called it a big lie. Iranian state media ran headlines saying Trump retreated out of fear of Iran's response.
And then a senior Iranian Foreign Ministry official told CBS News privately — we received points from the US through mediators and they are being reviewed.
You can't claim there are no talks while reviewing the terms of the talks. Iran is negotiating. They just cannot say so out loud. Because their population has been told for forty-seven years that America is the great satan and you don't negotiate with the great satan. Saying publicly that you are sitting down with Jared Kushner would be politically catastrophic for the regime. So they deny it in front of cameras and read every word of the proposal behind closed doors.
Pakistan has offered to host formal talks. Turkey's foreign minister has been on the phone with more than a dozen regional and global counterparts over the past forty-eight hours. Oman is working to arrange safe passage of vessels through the Strait of Hormuz. The diplomatic machinery is moving. Slowly. With no guarantees. But it is moving.
Meanwhile the proxy network is still active. Seven rockets were fired from Iraqi territory at a US military base in northeastern Syria — the first cross-border attack on US troops since the war started. The launcher was found on a burned truck in the Rabi'a district. Nobody claimed responsibility. That is the tell. You burn the truck and run because you don't want to be the one who escalates this into something that brings American bombs down on your position. Iran's proxies are still pulling triggers but they are doing it quietly and disappearing fast. That is an organization that knows its patron is in serious trouble.
Here is the bigger picture. Iran has lost its supreme leader. Lost half its top military and government officials. Lost its nuclear program. Lost most of its air defense capability. Lost its naval presence in the Caspian. Lost its oil revenue. Lost its diplomatic standing with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Britain, and Lebanon. Its proxy cells are still firing but doing it anonymously because nobody wants to claim credit for attacks when claiming credit might get you killed next.
Iran's senior military adviser said the war will continue until Iran receives full compensation for the damage it has sustained. Full compensation. From the country that has been bombing them for twenty-five days. That is a man saying something publicly that he knows will never happen because he cannot say anything else. The audience is not Washington. The audience is domestic. He is talking to the Iranian people who have been told their government is winning.
It is not winning. It is running out of everything — commanders, weapons, money, allies, and time. Even a cornered animal takes a lifeline when one is offered. Iran is reviewing the lifeline. The five days will tell us whether they take it.
Everyone knows the region is choosing sides. And Iran is running out of people willing to stand on theirs.
THE WAR BEHIND THE WAR
I told you at the top there was something hiding underneath every Iran headline you have seen this month. Something that has nothing to do with missiles and everything to do with your wallet. Here it is.
While the world has been watching bombs fall on Tehran and tankers pile up outside the Strait of Hormuz, something else has been happening. Something quieter. Something that a handful of financial analysts and a few foreign policy people have been writing about in places most Americans never read. And if it plays out the way it is developing right now, it will matter more to your daily life than any airstrike.
Iran has been allowing some ships through the Strait of Hormuz. Not all ships. Not American ships. Not ships from countries it considers enemies. But some ships have been getting through. And the condition — the thing you have to do to get your tanker past the Iranian guns and mines — is this. Your oil transaction has to be settled in Chinese yuan. Not dollars. Yuan.
Read that again. Iran is operating as a gatekeeper for the world's most important oil chokepoint and the price of admission is abandoning the US dollar.
This is not a rumor. This has been reported by CNN, by multiple Asian financial outlets, by South Korean financial news. Multiple governments have been in contact with Iran about it. Ships from countries like Pakistan and India have reportedly passed through under these terms. The story has been building since mid-March, getting more detailed, getting more corroborated with each passing week.
Now here is the part you need to understand. This is not Iran's idea. Iran does not have the financial sophistication or the international reach to architect something like this on its own. This has China written all over it. And China has been working toward this moment for a long time.
About twenty percent of global oil trade is already being settled in currencies other than the dollar. China has been methodically working to move that number higher for years. They created their own oil futures contracts priced in yuan. They have built bilateral agreements with oil-producing nations to trade outside the dollar system. They have expanded the BRICS economic bloc and pushed hard for its members to transact in non-dollar currencies. This is a long game. Patient. Systematic. And the Iran war just handed them the most powerful move they have made yet.
Think about what they have done. China did not fire a single missile. China did not lose a single soldier. China did not spend a dollar on this war. And yet China is potentially positioned to use Iran — a country in the middle of a war with the United States — as a mechanism to force global oil transactions off the American dollar. If you want your oil to move through the Strait of Hormuz, you pay in yuan. And if enough of the world starts paying in yuan, the dollar loses something it has held since 1973. The petrodollar. The agreement that made every country on earth need American dollars to buy the oil that runs their economies.
The dollar is already showing stress. It is down thirteen percent against the euro in the past year. That is not a blip. That is a trend. The stock market peaked in January and has been slowly drifting lower. Foreign investors who hold US stocks and US Treasury bonds are losing money — not just from market moves but from currency depreciation. If you hold US assets and the dollar keeps weakening, you are losing money just by holding on.
And here is the strategic trap that China has set. Trump cannot end this war without being absolutely certain he has not handed Beijing a near-fatal blow to the American dollar. He cannot declare victory and walk away if the price of walking away is a world where oil no longer flows through a dollar-denominated system. The war that started as a military operation to eliminate Iran's nuclear threat has become, in part, a war about the financial architecture of the global economy. And China is sitting back and watching us fight it.
This is why I tell you every week that the stories that matter are not always the loudest ones. The loudest story is the missiles and the diplomats and the carrier groups. The quieter story is a financial system being slowly repositioned while the world stares at the fireworks. China is not our friend. China is not neutral. China is patient. And patient adversaries are the most dangerous kind.
Watch the Strait. Not just for ships. Watch what currency those ships are using to pay for their passage. That number will tell you more about how this war is going than any press conference out of the Pentagon.
Everyone knows the war is bigger than it looks. Now you know how much bigger.
Alright. There's your three.
Delta told Congress to wait in line like everyone else. About time. Five weeks of TSA workers going without pay. Three hundred and sixty-six people who quit because they could not afford to keep showing up. LaGuardia. Atlanta. JFK. Hours in line. Two pilots dead. And Congress was getting priority rebooking. Not anymore. Friday is the deadline. Fund it or go home and face the voters.
Iran is being expelled from its own neighborhood. Saudi Arabia. Qatar. Britain. Lebanon threw out their own ambassador — the country that hosts Hezbollah said get out. Forty-seven years of building a proxy network across the Middle East and it is crumbling faster than they can replace the people running it. Trump says there are fifteen points of agreement. Iran calls it fake news while reading every word of the proposal behind closed doors. Five days. We will see.
And underneath all of it — China. Patient. Quiet. Using Iran as a mechanism to push global oil transactions off the American dollar and onto the yuan. Not a shot fired. Not a soldier deployed. Just a financial strategy playing out in the middle of someone else's war. Watch what currency those tankers are paying in. That is the real scoreboard.
That is Everyone Knows. The hard truth, the stuff nobody else will say, and the thing that keeps you going.
I'm Brian Bullock of Starborne Studios. Find me on X at EveryoneKnws1. If this hit you, share it with somebody who needs to hear it. Subscribe. Leave a review. Come find us at brianbullockwriter.com. We're building something here and you're welcome to be part of it.
Because Everyone Knows — your silence is your consent.