True Patriot Love - March 15, 2026


The Straight of Hormuz ｜ The Choke Point Of The War


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

180.70955

Word Count

3,102

Sentence Count

62

Misogynist Sentences

1

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 As we speak here in this Wednesday, March 11th, the Strait of Hormuz is still an active war zone for cargo ships and ships filled with oil and gas trying to exit in and out of the Persian Gulf.
00:00:15.480 As today, numerous ships were hit by projectiles and set on fire. It's still a war zone. It's still a very dangerous place for anyone trying to get goods in and out of the Persian Gulf.
00:00:26.400 As always, joined by Mike Wicks.
00:00:27.880 And Mike, how are you?
00:00:28.660 Good, Jim.
00:00:29.360 Thanks for having me in on this.
00:00:31.380 This is really, I think, one of the major focal points of this war because it is a choke
00:00:36.140 point for a huge amount of shipping that goes through there.
00:00:40.400 And after a very active 24 hours of bombardment from both sides, this, I think, seems to be
00:00:48.420 the focus of everybody's attention today.
00:00:51.840 Well, it is for a number of reasons.
00:00:53.220 Just real quick, 65% of the energy, gas and oil for South Korea comes through the strait, 72% for Japan, 50% for India.
00:01:05.160 So those huge countries rely on it in such a big way, and it's a dangerous place.
00:01:11.160 And it's oil, it's gas, it's sulfur.
00:01:14.140 And that sulfur and sulfuric acid is key components in EV batteries and transformers and many other items.
00:01:21.500 And 33% of the world's nitrogen fertilizer and feedstock comes through the strait.
00:01:27.920 So as we get towards spring and planting season and seeding season.
00:01:32.200 And even some of these countries require it all year long.
00:01:34.580 That's right.
00:01:35.660 It has huge ramifications.
00:01:38.760 Now, Saudi Arabia, this is amazing to me.
00:01:41.780 45 years ago, they built a pipeline that hasn't been used until now to the Red Sea,
00:01:47.800 just in case there would be a problem in the Strait of Hormuz.
00:01:50.420 So Saudi Arabia, with some foresight, now has their ability to ship their oil to the Red Sea way away from the state of Hormuz and get it to market, which is something a lot of Canadians look at going, why couldn't we have done that years ago?
00:02:05.080 That was the first question that just popped into my mind.
00:02:07.700 This sounds like even as an emergency backup, one of the smartest things a country could do.
00:02:13.480 A lot of the countries that you named that are recipients of these shipments are already saying that they're on low reserves.
00:02:21.460 Very much so.
00:02:22.060 The fertilizer on low reserves, fuel certainly on, and oil processed and unprocessed.
00:02:28.640 These countries are in trouble already.
00:02:30.280 India mentioned, I think, two weeks ago that they're down to the bottom of the barrel, South Korea.
00:02:35.940 Yeah, and here's a bit of the issue.
00:02:37.920 It's such a narrow geographical channel, and we're talking about massive targets,
00:02:42.960 these huge container ships and tanker ships for oil and liquid natural gas.
00:02:48.000 It's not exactly difficult to hit them if you're trying to hit them with a projectile or grenade or missile or drone.
00:02:54.300 So it has been brought up that should we escort them?
00:02:56.920 back in the day in world war ii canadian british and american ships would escort cargo ships through
00:03:03.800 the north atlantic to the uk to ireland and england so they had supplies for the war effort we may be
00:03:09.880 at that point you know we need warships to escort these cargo ships through the strait would that
00:03:14.840 work i'm the only thing that i think of when you mention that is that so much of this is air driven
00:03:20.760 yes drone driven yes and precision uh bombing that would that even work it would because a lot
00:03:28.200 of the modern warships have surface to air capabilities to neutralize a lot of the air
00:03:34.040 to surface threats that they would face so it it's expensive the missiles and ordinance they'd
00:03:40.280 be shooting the cheap drones cost a lot of money yeah but at least you wouldn't have basically a
00:03:45.240 naked cargo ship going through the strait a prime target to be hit and unfortunately the world needs
00:03:51.640 the supplies that come through the strait of hormuz desperately uh and that means that if
00:03:56.200 they're actually going to be guiding these ships through the expense to do that is going to be
00:04:00.840 shared probably among a couple of nations if if that was the case uh and you know if it costs
00:04:07.320 five million dollars worth of missiles to get you know uh 100 million dollars of oil through
00:04:13.800 there's going to be some questions there's going to be i would imagine some convoying going on
00:04:18.720 now here's an interesting canadian twist to the whole thing on tuesday in the house of commons
00:04:23.580 when mark carney showed up hey mark it's canada welcome back yeah nice you remember us he sent
00:04:29.280 postcards that was nice yeah he said that canada would have no offensive he was quite deliberate
00:04:34.960 about his words no offensive role to join israel and in the united states in attacking iran now
00:04:41.660 he didn't say anything about defensive and we do have mine sweepers kingston class patrol vessel
00:04:49.060 mine sweepers that could be an option because there's a danger and a concern about mines in
00:04:54.260 the strait of hormuz and it would not surprise me to find out that some of our mine sweepers are
00:04:59.660 sent to the strait to clear to mines and he could say wait a sec that's defensive right i'm protecting
00:05:04.780 cargo i'm not attacking anybody yeah and you know it's interesting uh usually mark carney tries to
00:05:11.040 find a way into uh the hearts of everybody by making a speech about how canada is participating
00:05:17.620 in something or leading the way on something and uh this was very different that was a very
00:05:23.400 different uh mode of of uh communication with us that was like i'm not with trump in this war yeah
00:05:30.600 well after saying he was on day one he said i'm but it was very interesting choice of words we are
00:05:37.600 not going to be involved in an offensive role now here's the other thing right now the canadian
00:05:43.720 military have no equipment modern enough to be involved in an offensive role that was my next
00:05:50.000 kind of point in the united states but in a defensive role in a protection of cargo ships
00:05:56.300 oil tankers liquid natural gas and freight going back and forth through the strait of hormuz
00:06:01.820 we do have that ability what do you think okay so the current status is not a lot going through
00:06:08.660 the straight of it's still not it's nowhere close to even half capacity insurance is through the
00:06:14.540 roof for every one of these shipments absolutely uh a shocking amount uh now you know up to a half
00:06:21.420 million dollars just to get through that stretch today's not going to help no and then with tankers
00:06:27.520 being hit i mean the rates could change daily mike uh the other thing is you hit one of these
00:06:32.600 tankers i'm just guessing and you seem to have some knowledge on this jim once they're hit a
00:06:37.640 lot of these are flammable highly flammable cargo so it doesn't take much to take one out well no
00:06:45.100 but liquid think about a massive cargo ship full with liquid natural gas or crude oil is not exactly
00:06:52.720 something i want to get hit with high explosive drones yeah a lot of nitrogen on some of them
00:06:57.600 you know like it just seems to me like a lot of dangerous potentially dangerous uh and or toxic
00:07:04.400 also you sink one of these things don't forget the oil goes everywhere environmental disaster
00:07:09.920 it really is yeah uh so not only is it going to drive prices up on things that we need
00:07:15.040 to get our food, to get our, you know, our, our, our fuel to operate a nation, but also we're
00:07:22.980 creating an environmental nightmare as this happens. So just for an example, on February 28th,
00:07:28.340 the day before everything kicked off, 98 ships pass through the Strait of Hormuz on a normal day.
00:07:35.120 And then everything kicked off by March 1st, one ship made it through and they're so desperate to
00:07:41.000 get through there they're turning off their identification transponders on their boat now
00:07:45.420 that's for navigation so you can see on your radar that there's a massive huge cargo ship full of
00:07:51.140 crude oil maybe coming your way and at night or in bad weather there is a real desperation for
00:07:57.800 the shipping companies the crews to get in and out through there i was going to say there's probably
00:08:02.520 a lot of pressure on human beings to do things right now they do not want to do or would not
00:08:06.920 want to do or being forced to do mike it's and here's the other thing too now it's having a huge
00:08:12.200 roller coaster ride on the markets oil was 80 a barrel 90 over 100 back down to 80 now pushing
00:08:19.220 90 a barrel where the average consumer the average canadian they're paying the price at the pumps
00:08:25.620 there's been reports about diesel close to two dollars a liter gas about dan mcteague was on
00:08:30.860 with this and he predicted that we'd be at two dollars for diesel by today and he hit it right
00:08:35.060 on the head bang on and you can go and look on our youtube page in our feed to check his interview
00:08:40.700 and he's been 100 correct about diesel about the price of it and even i drove by a gas station to
00:08:46.600 the studio a dollar 60 a liter is pretty much average now he said that's up 10 cents by the
00:08:51.540 way in two days in two days now it may go down around thursday or friday because the price oil
00:08:58.400 has dropped down but with these tankers being hit that could be temporary and we could be back up
00:09:02.960 again i would i my estimation on this is that the price just continues to go up because the threat
00:09:09.020 of tankers being hit now is enough to keep the price at a reserve price and this is where donald
00:09:14.620 trump and pete hexeth and the inner circle they did not think this through they simply thought
00:09:21.340 that they would do what happened before they'd send this incredible wave of american air power
00:09:27.620 unlike anyone's ever seen with stealth bombers and stealth fighters and this and that and tomahawk
00:09:34.340 cruise missiles but they're underestimating how many drones and how many missiles and the resolve
00:09:41.160 of the iranian people the iranian military and the iranian leadership they are being hit hard
00:09:46.420 and they're still hitting back jim i've said this before uh i have a warehouse right do you know how
00:09:52.620 many drones i can store in that warehouse probably thousands hundreds of thousands do you know where
00:09:57.900 my warehouse is no exactly right this is the problem they're they're up against they're
00:10:04.380 they're making an offensive on a country's that's defense is i think meant to draw this out as long
00:10:12.620 as possible the longer it goes the worse it is for for the american administration for the world in
00:10:19.060 general you're seeing stories of countries around the world about what they're going to do for the
00:10:23.980 price of heating oil the price of gas diesel how is it going to affect us at stores in the grocery
00:10:29.180 store we're already dealing with the start the year they predicted the price of food in canada
00:10:34.400 a canadian average canadian would spend about an extra 1500 to 1700 dollars on food yeah before
00:10:40.580 the all of this and before the price of diesel rocketed so now everything we're staring at a
00:10:45.360 spring summer of everything we hold dear just basic transportation basic food basic life
00:10:51.120 more expensive you know jim i i know that uh you're uh a dyed in the wool trump fan
00:10:56.660 uh so let me just illustrate something maybe not quite let me just illustrate something
00:11:01.480 uh yeah you prick did he cancel your trip um he did it's so bad so let's just review this
00:11:12.440 the world's in turmoil over trade at the moment yes the impact of that financially has been
00:11:18.680 devastating already to so many countries canada included yeah um there is no end in sight to how
00:11:26.480 that's we're supposed to be negotiating kuzma and trying to figure out what happens in north
00:11:31.000 america trump doesn't seem all that interested he's got tariffs in mind he's putting blanket
00:11:36.260 tariffs out against the will of his own uh congress and supreme court and the supreme
00:11:41.340 court saying you can't really do this. He's going to find a way. At the same time, he's driving up
00:11:46.300 prices in all the key areas again by going to war with a nation that has a great deal of firepower
00:11:54.920 in the way of fuel, the Strait of Hormuz. I think you're right. They might have had an
00:11:59.500 underestimation when they thought, oh, we'll kill the entire family of the Ayatollah and not leave
00:12:04.920 his son behind. And I had sent you the link earlier, Mike. The Washington Post did the math
00:12:10.780 through pentagon sources the pentagon burned through 5.6 billion dollars worth of munitions
00:12:17.320 in the first two days oh my god in smart bombs and missiles and everything so it's expensive
00:12:24.900 when they're firing these 50 000 drones and you're firing a five million dollar missile
00:12:30.720 they'll knock it out you know how much my drones are no 89 jim you're right i'll get a whole
00:12:36.040 warehouse full of them but you know where where exactly no but that's the point they could get a
00:12:41.200 3d printer make cheap one-time throwaway suicide drones and fire them at targets all throughout
00:12:47.300 the gulf they could do that all day long and the longer it runs and the more people are stressed
00:12:52.100 about the price of fuel and the price of diesel and the price of everything else and the lower
00:12:56.460 trump falls on the poles the more pressure it's going to be for him to step out of there whether
00:13:02.120 or not they're finally successful or not because americans eventually are going to say hey stop
00:13:06.840 this we can't afford to live well at day 60 we shall see what uh congress does because he's got
00:13:13.880 to go back and ask for money at that point when you've blown through six billion dollars in two
00:13:19.000 days and that's not including that's the munitions that's not prince of brinei shopping but that's
00:13:26.040 numbers right there not the fuel not the logistics not everything else that goes with it just the
00:13:31.480 firepower just the firepower just the weapons to wage this war and that's the the big challenge
00:13:38.520 now with everything happening in the strait of hormuz is how long will the world put up with
00:13:43.880 what's happening and the cost of every everyday people how do we renegotiate the use of a safe use
00:13:50.360 of the strait of hormuz at this point the war continues on for six months how do we manage that
00:13:56.920 but that's the how okay who in the iranian government would anyone trust with you could
00:14:02.920 send a neutral u.n negotiator there who do they speak with oh do you trust their word oh no they're
00:14:09.800 they're going to wait for a moment in the future where it's advantageous for them to make horrible
00:14:14.600 strikes if we leave it the way it is so what are the options then jim that's that's the question
00:14:21.880 no one knows right now.
00:14:22.980 This problem with the Strait of Hormuz and tanker wars
00:14:26.020 dates back to the late 1980s.
00:14:28.480 We're looking at almost 40 years of this, Mike,
00:14:30.920 and the technology used to hit the tankers
00:14:33.380 and hit the ships are getting cheaper and more sophisticated.
00:14:36.780 So it's more and more dangerous to get this vital cargo
00:14:39.860 through this tiny little piece of water than ever before.
00:14:43.820 And I don't have any faith in Trump or Marco Rubio
00:14:48.040 or Pete Hegseth actually negotiated a deal with a country
00:14:51.480 They're just trying to bomb into the Stone Age.
00:14:54.380 Let's spitball for a second.
00:14:55.920 Okay.
00:14:56.220 We get to month three.
00:14:59.700 Many nations now desperate for the supplies that make their way through the strait.
00:15:06.100 We have no resolve.
00:15:08.100 There's a government still in power in Iran that is not negotiating.
00:15:12.200 No.
00:15:12.920 What choice does the rest of the world have with Trump waging this war?
00:15:18.820 With Israel waging this war?
00:15:20.660 what do we do no one can tell them to stop no one has the muscle to tell them to stop well
00:15:26.680 netanyahu has been aimed at this for 40 years trump jumped into it in 40 minutes right and
00:15:33.300 the plan seems to be no pun intended exploding on them and every day when you hear a press
00:15:40.220 conference or a spin or an explanation it makes less and less sense it makes zero sense at the
00:15:46.520 end of this there'll be nothing but casualties no one's going to win this okay so we can't use
00:15:51.340 the straight of her moves what do we do well i mean saudi arabia is shipping all their oil because
00:15:56.160 they're smart because they built a pipeline four decades ago to the red sea now we as canadians
00:16:01.480 have a liquid natural gas facility in bc that helps we do have one pipeline to the lower
00:16:07.300 mainland of bc but more so than ever this should be the the you know the the call to arms the call
00:16:15.360 to action for Kearney and all
00:16:17.400 levels of government to build another oil
00:16:19.240 pipeline to northern BC. And I
00:16:21.340 know Wab Canoe and Manitoba
00:16:23.160 are hot to trot to rebuild the Churchill
00:16:25.000 port and build a liquid natural gas
00:16:27.300 facility on
00:16:29.320 Churchill and Hudson
00:16:31.180 Bay and have it shipped to Europe. You know what else? Let's
00:16:33.220 learn a lesson here. Yes. Let's get
00:16:35.280 ahead of this. Let's not wait for
00:16:37.120 a world event to
00:16:39.040 impact us before we react.
00:16:41.380 And before we have the infrastructure.
00:16:43.860 Yeah. No, but they were
00:16:45.100 four decades ago they put the infrastructure in because when they did it there was the tanker war
00:16:52.060 so in the late 80s they thought oil is too important to our economy and to our country
00:16:57.100 to risk it so they built the pipeline just in case they'll need it and now they need it now
00:17:02.100 and it's ready to go good news is we're in the ev game not that we can get any of the materials
00:17:06.560 that we need uh thanks jim for getting through this