For those of you who think the Chinese are siting there laughing at us and aren't calling up Tehran by the hour, consider this: The Chinese buy 80% of Iran's oil.

Now they can buy 0%.

That seems the wrong percentage to focus on. The Iranian oil accounts for about 10% of China’s seaborne oil imports. (A smaller percent of total imports.) A 10% shortfall is bad but not catastrophic. (You’ll remember when OPEC stopped selling to us it was about 35% of our imports. And while it was very disruptive it didn’t end life in the country.

It will be tough for Iran to lose the revenue, surely, but again that would take time to manifest. It’s not as though the pain is going to be significant by Tuesday. This is a “siege” tactic, and sieges take time. Meanwhile US oil markets and the stock market will continue to be affected, so in this weird case it’s a siege that has the potential to work both ways: the suffering of the Iranian people vs Trump’s ability to withstand the pain of the market tanking. Given my knowledge of how the Iranian leadership thinks and how Trump thinks, you might guess which I think will give first.

I admit to not understanding the tactic: “If you won’t open the Strait, then we’re gonna close the Strait”. It surely is unconventional, but it seems fraught.