מומחה: סין סיפקה לאיראן חומרים שעלולים לסייע לה לשגר טילי סג'יל תוך 30 דקות מרגע הוצאתם מתת קרקע ונראה גם טילים היפרסוניים

And joining us now live to discuss the Strait of Hormuz, the Chinese regime and the energy markets is Bart Markois. He's a former career diplomat and energy department official, as well as a foreign policy analyst. Bart, thank you for joining us. So far, the Strait of Hormuz has encountered that naval blockade that President Trump ordered at 10 a.m. this morning. So far, there's been no attacks on U.S. naval vessels. What are your expectations in regards to the blockade? Oh, I think Iran will try something, and I do think that China will try to supply them. I believe that China already has supplied them with hypersonic anti-ship missiles, and they're just licking their chops, waiting for a chance to try them out. I'm sure that the United States Navy is anticipating that and has taken steps to mitigate the risk from that. And in terms of that, there seems to be an odd triangle, if you will, because Iran's top two partners, of course, China, as well as Russia. But the only leverage really that Iran has is to close that strait. Of course, there's also risk to President Trump if the oil markets remain so high as we creep closer to the midterms. So I want to get your sense, is potentially President Trump and President Xi aligned in this regard? I think that Chinese interests and American interests are aligned in regard to getting shipping cleared out of the Persian Gulf. However, President Trump has made clear that no ships that call at an Iranian port will be allowed through. The blockade is only on ships that go into or out of Iranian ports. So in that way, we are at complete loggerheads with China, because unless China decides that they're going to buy their oil from the GCC countries, the Arab countries on the other side of the Persian Gulf, this is a policy that is aimed partially at China. The real aim is Iran. But President Trump knows very well that taking out Iran as a threat and as a supplier of discounted, steeply discounted oil to China is a severe blow to Chinese power. Is there any advantage to the U.S. in leaving the strait closed in that so much as it hurts the Chinese regime? Well, it is closed as far as the Chinese regime is concerned, and it is open as far as the rest of the world is concerned. And so that gives President Trump an enormous amount of leverage over Xi Jinping when they meet. Xi Jinping will want, he will be willing to make concessions to get the strait opened for Chinese ships to bring Iranian oil out. What those concessions will be, I'm not sure. But right now, President Trump holds the whip hand and he's not letting go. And Bart, in terms of those very stiff tariffs that President Trump is threatening, you explained that your view is that they have already supplied Iran with defense capabilities. Oh, yeah. How do you expect this to play out? Yeah. And it's not just missiles. I'm not absolutely certain that they've given up hypersonic anti-ship missiles. I suspect it. I can't say that with any certainty, but I suspect it. One thing I am certain of is that they have supplied Iran with ammonium perchlorate and sodium perchlorate. These are the necessary precursors to manufacturing both explosives and rocket fuel, especially the solid rocket fuel for the SEDL missiles that are so dangerous because with solid fuel, they can be set up in less than 30 minutes and fired within 30 minutes of the time they come out of their underground lair. Whereas the liquid-fueled missiles take several hours to fill up into fuel. It makes them more vulnerable. The closing off the shipping lanes is not enough, however, to stop that resupply, because both Russia and China are capable of supplying Iran through overland routes, and they have been doing that. So I'm sure we have military eyes on those routes and we're watching them. But that's another thing that we have to be careful of.