With the recent drop in odds for Strait of Hormuz re-opening, time to examine how credible Mr. Trump’s remarks are being taken. To me, with odds back to below pre-cease fire rates, it seems to me punters should be a little less credulous, In other words, given Mr. Trump’s penchant for overstatement, why do we see these gyrations?
Source: Kalshi, accessed 4/18/2026 10:30AM CT.
Not sure this exaind Kalshi pricing but, what with the cease-fire in the Gulf fraying, the rest of the world is attempting to resolve the war in the Persian Gulf without relying on the U.S. to come up with a plan. A coalition of countries which includes neither the U.S. nor Israel is working on a plan to secure shipping through the Strait of Hormuz:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/england-france-lead-strictly-defensive-200131760.html
The plan is pointedly “strictly defensive”, which I take to mean no blockades of Iranian ports, no bombing and certainly no killing of Iranian civilians – maybo no attacks on Lebanon. The “strictly defensive” part also explains the absence of the U.S. and Israel.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is working with China, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on alternatives to the U.S.-vs-Iran negotiations, because the clear need by both the U.S. and Iran to score a win is not working for anybody else:
https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/international/china-and-pakistan-propose-five-point-plan-to-de-escalate-west-asia-tensions
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/egypt-working-pakistan-lasting-us-091236237.html
The world has lost confidence in U.S. leadership, and is finding ways to go around us. Big surprise. The way I can imagine this working is that the France/UK-led coalition and the Pakistan-led coalition present the U.S. with a workable plan (plans?) to stabilize oil trade, and then pressure us to accept it. We (the war-criminal-in-chief) won’t be happy, but such a plan would offer a way out, so we (he) might accept it. Bibi won’t like it. It’ll be our job to make him accept it. Iran has made clear that an end to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon is a condition for opening Hormuz, and the two coalitions will happily go along with that. They may grudgingly go along with Iran collecting tolls on oil and gas shipments, perhaps with time limits; Iran needs money to repair damage done during the war.
Trump has lost all control of this situation and it’s crazy for any market to pretend that he can do anything to steer events going forward. Iran holds the cards and they’ll play them to further humiliate Trump and demonstrate their power over the world economy—which will play into negotiations against Israel. I also don’t think that Trump has the intelligence or the guts to stand up to Bibi. The sensible course of action that Macroduck outlines in his post probably won’t be taken until China steps into the room.