It seems like there's barely any place on earth that is escaping the ramifications of Trump's War of choice on Iran. The whole world is paying a price and the less affluent seem to be the most heavily burdened. As if their lives weren't difficult enough already. Do the billionaires like Trump care even one iota for the common man on any level? Was the economic well-being of the planet taken into account for even 5 minutes when they were planning this ridiculous and highly unpredictable war?

Now it looks like we're going to have to contend with significant hikes in the price of gasoline, electricity, natural gas and perhaps even significant gas shortages.

This no doubt will reverberate through countless industries, and effect billions of people. Don the Destroyer continues his rampage of worldwide sabotage.

Like its neighbors, the shrimp boat “Lucky Blessings” has been docked all month at a pier in central Thailand. Wittaya Lekdee, the owner, cannot take it out to sea because he can no longer afford boat fuel, the price of which has spiked 75 percent. “It’s the worst that it has ever been,” he said of his plight.

In the Philippines, 48-year-old Richard Arcana has fished his whole life. But now he is looking for another job.

The oil shock from the war in Iran has rippled through much of Southeast Asia, upending lives, straining local economies and increasing public discontent. While many countries are contending with the fallout, experts say this region of more than 600 million has been one of the hardest hit.

“It’s a crisis abroad,” said Suchart Kendang, the head of the a coastal fishermen group in Samut Sakhon Province in Thailand. “But we are the ones who get screwed.”

In the Philippines, the government is handing out the equivalent of $84 each for tens of thousands of motorized tricycle and jeepney drivers around Manila. In landlocked Laos, which buys fuel from now oil-strapped Thailand, over 40 percent of the gas stations have been forced to close because they ran out fuel. Similarly, in Cambodia, which imports fuel from Thailand and Vietnam, nearly a third of the country’s gas stations have closed.

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Unlike the United States or Europe, Southeast Asia is heavily dependent on oil that sails through the Strait of Hormuz. Nearly 80 percent of the region’s crude oil imports come from the Persian Gulf, and about a fourth of its liquefied natural gas imports have to pass through the now-blocked strait, said Sam Reynolds, an analyst at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

In Wawa, a fishing community south of Manila, Linita Buenaventura, 52, said her husband had to abandon the family’s boat to find a job in another town because of high gas prices. She temporarily lives with a friend because they can no longer afford to pay rent for their small hut. “We were proud fishermen who owned our own boats. Now we are reduced to begging for jobs,” she said. “It really is a hard life.” The real suffering is for people like us, the lower and middle class,” she said.

Even in the wealthy city-state of Singapore, the government has warned of higher electricity prices. About 47 percent of its L.N.G. last year came from Qatar. On Wednesday, Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said Singaporeans must “brace ourselves for a long storm of global political instability.”

If oil prices continue to rise, Mr. Suchart, the Thai fisherman, said he will have to stop fishing, a job that he’s been doing since he was 13 years old.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/20/world/asia/iran-war-oil-thailand-vietnam-philippines.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

It's always refreshing when an expert speaks truth to toxic and corrosive power. And it's especially inspiring when that truth is being spoken in the face of countless bald-faced lies about US progress with this very dumb and reckless war.

French General Michel Yakovleff just compared joining Trump's Iran war to "buying cheap tickets for the Titanic" after it already hit the iceberg. And then it got even worse for Trump.

Yakovleff is no random talking head. He's a three-star general, former commander of the legendary French Foreign Legion, and held senior positions within NATO itself. He is one of the most respected military voices in France and regularly weighs in on matters of international security.

So when he was asked about Trump's desperate pleas for Europe to join his Iran catastrophe, his answer carried serious weight.

He didn't mince words. He laid out five distinct reasons why every European nation should flatly refuse. And each one is more damaging than the last.

First, Trump doesn't understand how NATO actually works. You don't get to launch your own unilateral bombing campaign and then invite allies to run a separate operation underneath you. That's not how alliances function.

If Trump wants NATO involved, NATO takes command. One operation, one flag, one chain of command. "I don't think he understood that," Yakovleff said. That alone is a devastating indictment of a man who claims to be the greatest dealmaker on earth

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Second, nobody knows what the actual strategic goals are. Beyond forcing open the Strait of Hormuz, what is the endgame? Regime change? Containment? A negotiated settlement? Trump hasn't said. He apparently can't say, because he doesn't know himself.

Third, and this one is particularly brutal, you can't coordinate a multinational military campaign through tweets that change every two minutes. If allied nations are going to put their soldiers in harm's way, they need explicit, written objectives from the United States. As Yakovleff put it, "It's going to be necessary for Trump himself to know what he wants." The quiet contempt in that sentence could strip paint off a wall.

Fourth, there is the fundamental issue of trust. Trump has abandoned allies before and everyone knows he would do it again without hesitation the moment it became politically useful. The Kurds know it. The Afghans know it. Europe knows it. "He would let us down whenever it suited him," the general said. Why would any nation put troops on the line for a leader with that track record?

And fifth, the knockout punch. Yakovleff cited a principle he said he learned at the U.S. Army War College: "You don't reinforce failure. You move on. You find something else." A decorated French general is using American military doctrine, taught in American war colleges, to explain to the world why following this American president into battle would be strategic malpractice.

The global response has been just as damning. Japan said no. Australia said no. The United Kingdom said no. The European Union said no. Meanwhile, Iranian missiles and drones have made the Strait of Hormuz so dangerous that insurance companies won't cover oil tankers passing through it.

Twenty percent of the world's petroleum normally flows through that strait. Oil prices are skyrocketing and consumers everywhere are feeling it.

Trump started this. He escalated it. He isolated America from its allies in the process.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/money/topstories/we-re-not-going-to-go-into-something-where-french-general-slams-trump-s-pitch-for-naval-alliance-to-police-hormuz/ar-AA1YOt5m?apiversion=v2&domshim=1&noservercache=1&noservertelemetry=1&batchservertelemetry=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1

These blowhards parroting Israeli talking point or backing Trump are beyond contemptible - this is affecting real people now all over the world on this uneccesary illegal war. After the Philliphines Thailand is the second most affected in the world. Let that sink in.

Drivers are increasingly reluctant to accept long-distance fares, fearing they may run out of fuel en route with no guarantee of being able to refuel, he said. The situation has already reduced the number of taxis available at the airport.

Of the 5,000 to 6,000 taxis registered with the association, only about 2,500 are currently operating, he said. Some drivers have halted services altogether, while others have adjusted their schedules, opting to work only in the morning when fuel is easier to obtain, or limiting trips to short distances.

Just now, beautifulthailand99 said:

These blowhards parroting Israeli talking point or backing Trump are beyond contemptible - this is affecting real people now all over the world on this uneccesary illegal war. After the Philliphines Thailand is the second most affected in the world. Let that sink in.

I am not in Thailand, or the Phils try Australia, how we are suffering

8 minutes ago, still kicking said:

I am not in Thailand, or the Phils try Australia, how we are suffering

Just topped up ahlf tank at the pretrol station - all ok atm - but saw my first filling up jerry cans customer since the last panic.