Oil, War, and Puppeteers from the White House – Who Pays the Price of American Strategy?
America's military and political ally Japan is one of the financial victims of the Gulf War and the US strategy of blocking and seizing oil and gas fields worldwide to impose its own (expensive) energy sources.
Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, during a speech in parliament on the topic of government measures to prevent or mitigate energy shortages due to the war in the Persian Gulf, told lawmakers and the public that the state had procured more oil for July than it normally consumes.
Previously, for June, 80 percent of needs had been secured, so her address was meant to reassure the worried economy and citizens.
However, food and other product prices in the country continue to rise, and Japanese TV stations report that over 10,000 items will increase in price by the end of the year. Almost simultaneously, Japan's two largest airlines, JAL and ANA, announced another price hike for plane tickets in July.
But what may be interesting for the international public regarding the situation in Japan is that, due to supply disruptions caused by military operations launched by the US and Israel, Japan signed contracts for July to purchase American oil worth $2.4 million per day (according to the highest-circulation domestic newspaper Yomiuri), ten times more than the same time last year.
That oil originates from Alaska. It should be noted that in July of last year, Japan's imports of American oil had already jumped 19 times compared to 2024 due to the twelve-day war against Iran!
Japan traditionally imports more than 90 percent of its oil (sometimes up to 95 percent) from Gulf countries, and the lion's share of that black gold, of course, passes through the Strait of Hormuz. A few percent Japan also obtains from Russia.
In the past few months, during the Gulf War, several tankers managed to reach Japanese refineries thanks to relatively good bilateral relations between Tokyo and Tehran.
The Japanese government actively worked on diversifying supply sources and managed to sign contracts and secure several shipments from a total of 14 countries worldwide, including Azerbaijan, Mexico, and Canada. Yet, the surge in imports of expensive oil and gas from the US stands out.
American Oil Offensive
Hence, East Asian analysts critical of US foreign policy believe that Japan has fallen deeply into a trap set by its military-political ally Washington.
Because last year, the US first threatened and imposed high tariffs to pressure the Land of the Rising Sun to drastically reduce its annual trade surplus of nearly $70 billion (in 2024) by, among other things, purchasing larger quantities of American energy.
The US President Donald Trump demanded that Japan, as well as the Republic of Korea and Taiwan, invest in a project to build a pipeline and a ship terminal for loading tankers in Alaska, which would require a giant investment of at least $44 billion.
That is a heavy burden that the US government wants to shift onto its Asian allies under the pretext that it is in their interest to invest in this project, which is difficult to implement due to the harsh climatic conditions in Alaska and, under normal circumstances when much cheaper resources from Russia and Gulf countries are available, is not profitable at all.
Japanese and other East Asian investors, except those in Taiwan, reacted coldly to that initiative from Washington, foreseeing major delays and costs in building that pipeline, which would run from the Arctic Sea coast across Alaska to its Pacific coast.
Puppeteers from the White House
Now, however, it becomes quite clear why American companies holding concessions over those energy sources advertised this expensive project by emphasizing the political instability of the Middle East.
Now it is also crystal clear that the US, alone or with accomplices, has embarked on a military strangulation of all oil-producing countries that can offer their product to large East Asian economies, such as China, Japan, or South Korea, at lower prices than the US – there are the intervention in Venezuela, attacks on Iran, the US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, systematic attacks on refineries in Russia, interception and seizure of Russian tankers...
So, now that Middle Eastern resources are inaccessible and there is a danger that Russian terminals, refineries, and tankers could be attacked at any moment, and demand for American energy is multiplying, it is obvious that the surplus that the Japanese, South Korean, and Taiwanese economies register relative to the US will fall, and that the governments of those states and regions will want to open their wallets and invest in Alaska.
Therefore, it can be said that the Gulf War is not a game that Washington plays only for the interests of Israel, which has a powerful lobby in the US, nor just for weakening China, but also for financially draining its military-political allies, who increasingly resemble powerless puppets whose strings are pulled from the White House.
