The White House is standing by its core objectives for Operation Epic Fury, which it says does not include the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, as ongoing disruption to the oil route pushes up fuel costs in New Zealand.
Asked about reopening the Strait of Hormuz not being a core objective for the United States, Finance Minister Nicola Willis said she remained “disappointed that New Zealand is bearing the brunt of a conflict that is not of our making”.
In a recent press conference, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked by a Wall Street Journal journalist: “Would President Trump declare victory and wind down military operations if the core objectives are met, but still passage remains quite slow through the Strait?”
Leavitt listed the core objectives of ‘Operation Epic Fury’ as: Destroying the Iranian Navy, destroying their ballistic missiles, dismantling their defence industrial infrastructure and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“The full reopening of the Strait is something the administration is working towards, but the core objectives of the operation have been clearly defined for the American people by the Commander-in-Chief [President Donald Trump].”
Willis said it was “going to damage the world the longer that Strait is closed, and it is leading to high petrol and diesel prices and damage to our families, our businesses and our economy”.
“New Zealand continues to call for negotiations and for conflict to end, because the sooner it ends, the better it is for Kiwis and their cost of living.
"I'm yet to meet a New Zealander who says, ‘Thank you for the conflict," Willis said.
14 Comments
New Zealand is bearing the brunt of a conflict that is not of our making
Um, the immediate battle, no.
But the concerted pressure on 'Persia' so as to get at the oil underneath the incumbents?
Yes, we rode in on the coattails of that. Anna - get a hold of, and read two Perkins books: Confessions of an Economic Hit-man and The Secret History of the American Empire.
We chose to benefit from and ignore, that. Last time I checked, ignorance was no excuse.
While oil is undoubtably a part of the picture, there are large reserves elsewhere that can be tapped for use. This area is a problem because of a mix of politics and religion. Persia is close to the epicentre of where civilisation rose, and the land there has been fought over for centuries. Long before oil became important.
I suggest Trump attacked primarily because of Iranian politics fuelling and feeding the fight with Israel, and ultimately the US. Oil is a side issue, though not irrelevant. This type of fight has gone on for millenia.
Why not use this 'not of our making' event as an opportunity to make NZ self sufficient in energy.
It's a national tragedy that we're still reliant on imported fossil fuels given the abundant renewable energy resources we have at our disposal. Yes there will always be specific industry demand for diesel, kerosene etc but these are at the margins. Joe Blogs doesn't need to drive a diesel ute, there are plenty of alternatives.
Chinese solar and battery tech is getting cheap as chips. If it takes subsidies to encourage widespread adoption of solar panels and EVs, so be it. Legislate for net metering to make distributed solar generation worthwhile. Invest in geothermal for dry year baseload.
All it takes is political will. Someone needs to stare down the generator's lobby. Otherwise we'll forever be at the mercy of orange idiots and fundamentalist nut jobs, while the govt of the day trots out the same old feeble 'not of our making' excuse.
Yep, next time there’s an oil shock we need to be the smug country that doesn’t give a shit.
Why not use this 'not of our making' event as an opportunity to make NZ self sufficient in energy.
Why not? Lack of leadership, vision, strategy, capability. Generally speaking, we're quite lazy on the big picture stuff.
For NZ to be truly self sufficient in energy would require either a massive decline in available energy or a breakthrough in energy conversion...we should probably aim to work with what we have access to (largely) domestically
Yes there will always be specific industry demand for diesel, kerosene etc but these are at the margins. Joe Blogs doesn't need to drive a diesel ute, there are plenty of alternatives.
Private passenger vehicles are the margins of our fossil fuel consumption.
And private passenger vehicles are a very marginal use of resources
The parts of the economy that make and do stuff are far harder to make renewable than passenger vehicles.
Not really, it just comes at a cost. We could transport by rail and electric trucks, we could exchange most gas for electricity, we could have a 100% electric public transport fleet, we could get rid of the industries that can’t comply. We could try and farm with electricity and sell that technology. I doubt it would make us poorer in the end.
It comes at an energy and resource demand, not a 'cost'.
Such an obsession
Edit - farm with electricity? Is that from an engineer?
We will end up farming with solar (hydro and PV and wind are merely derivatives of solar). The more direct the capture, the less the waste.
Why introduce an intermediate step?
Nonsense engineering...
Not sure id describe 90% of petrol and 10% of diesel as marginal.
I would once FF is unaffordable.
Try: Unavailable.
The US gets 2% of its oil via the Strait of Hormuz. NZ gets close to 100% via refineries in Asia. Interestingly major US allies in Asia are directly tied to the Strait too, am surprised they haven't stood up to the US more.
The Arab states must be feeling pretty severe impacts too, the loss of them being "safe havens" as well as direct economic losses must be getting tough. Am surprised they haven't also told the US to f off, I do wonder if they might end up closing some US military bases as they clearly paint big targets on their backs.
The reason its not part of their objective is that they can not open the strait militarily. If Trump packs up his bags this will be a strategic failure and he knows it. The USA is a net importer of crude oil and obviously the price of oil is set on the global market so to say that the closure of the strait doesnt affect the USA is erroneous. Then there's the fertiliser they rely so heavily on and helium that is critical to chip production and the AI related boom in the USA economy.
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