'Guardian angel' or protection racket: China Daily editorial

The US administration has never disguised its instinct to turn geopolitics into a commercial transaction. US President Donald Trump's latest proposal — that the United States should become the "guardian angel" of the Strait of Hormuz and charge other countries for safe passage — takes that logic to a telling degree.

The proposal marks a striking departure from decades of US maritime doctrine. From the Barbary Wars onward, successive US administrations argued that strategic waterways should remain open because global commerce depended on them. Transforming one of the world's busiest sea lanes into a toll booth is a reversal of principle.

It is also a reversal driven by a crisis Washington has itself created as well as its disregard for the fact that the strait is not US territory.

The latest US strikes on Iranian targets, followed by Iranian retaliation, have once again turned the Strait of Hormuz into the world's most dangerous maritime choke point, sending Brent Crude above $84 a barrel, nearly the highest in a month. Washington now presents its expanding military operations as indispensable to restoring order. Yet the instability it promises to manage is being generated by its own actions.

That raises an awkward fact: Washington is proposing to provide "security", when it is the one that created the need for protection.

Before the unlawful US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, the regional trajectory pointed in another direction. Saudi Arabia and Iran were cautiously repairing relations. Gulf states were increasingly focused on economic diversification, green investment and reducing their dependence on hydrocarbon exports. The region's principal source of instability was Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.

The strikes on Iran altered that political landscape overnight. Tehran was recast as the "overriding regional threat", conveniently shifting international attention away from Israel's actions in Gaza. For years Israel has argued that containing Iran should eclipse every other Middle Eastern priority. By embracing the same hierarchy, Washington has roiled the world and produced strategic consequences that are difficult to ignore.

In the eyes of Washington and Tel Aviv, heightened confrontation between Iran and its Arab neighbors serves to strengthen the rationale for a larger US military presence, deepen Gulf dependence on US security guarantees and create fresh opportunities for Israel to consolidate its regional position. The resulting instability is then cited as evidence that even greater US intervention is required. It is a protection racket more than a security strategy.

The economics deserve equal scrutiny. Since the confrontation began in February, every sign of de-escalation has been accompanied by softer oil prices, while every renewed military exchange has pushed markets higher. Volatility enriches energy traders, financial speculators and military contractors. Ordinary consumers, meanwhile, bear higher fuel costs and inflation. The beneficiaries of prolonged instability are rarely the societies living with its consequences.

Trump's proposal to charge shipping for US protection merely commercializes this logic. Security becomes another export. Conflict becomes another business opportunity.

The broader US public rarely asks whose pockets are being lined by the cash flows generated by the conflict Washington and Tel Aviv jointly started. The answer is a nexus of vested interests that thrive on volatility, manufacture narratives of "external threat", and skillfully manipulate public opinion, financial instruments and the machinery of war.

This cycle of turmoil must not be normalized in the region, however much its beneficiaries would like it to be. The Strait of Hormuz should be reopened through a comprehensive and lasting ceasefire, not perpetual military escalation. Any arrangement governing the strait must respect international law, safeguard the sovereignty and legitimate rights of the coastal states, and serve the shared interest of preserving the free and secure flow of global commerce — not the geopolitical ambitions of any single power.

The recent failure of the UN Security Council to adopt a resolution endorsing US-backed naval arrangements regarding the strait reflected precisely this concern: maritime security cannot be divorced from the political origins of the crisis.

If major countries begin treating strategic waterways as commercial assets to administer rather than international commons to preserve, others will eventually follow the precedent. The result will be a world in which every maritime choke point becomes subject to competing claims, military toll collectors and escalating geopolitical rivalry.

The guardianship of the Strait of Hormuz should be measured by restraint, diplomacy and respect for international law — not by the size of the invoice a self-appointed toll collector presents.