Written by Bryan Lutz, Editor at Dollarcollapse.com:
For most of the last century, the rules of global trade were simple: the US Navy kept the sea lanes open, ships moved freely, and everybody got rich. That arrangement is now coming apart, and the places where it’s unraveling fastest are the narrow strips of water that hold the whole system together.
The US Moves on Panama
Start with the Panama Canal.
On March 6, 2025, the canal effectively returned to US influence after Washington pressured Panama to expel Chinese port operator CK Hutchison. CK Hutchison agreed to sell its global ports business, including terminals at both ends of the canal, to a US-led group anchored by BlackRock. Simultaneously, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Panama’s President Mulino signed a joint memorandum on enhanced security cooperation, and the two countries agreed to work on a mechanism to compensate for the payment of canal tolls. And that means, US warships would effectively transit for free.
Panama kept the flag, but the US holds the key to the country.
It’s worth noting what’s actually at stake here. Around 40 percent of all US container traffic travels through the canal’s locks, and the United States is the origin or destination country of 74 percent of all cargo shipped through it.
Iran Raises the Stakes
Now look east, to the Strait of Hormuz, and the picture gets considerably darker.
After US-Israeli strikes on Iranian infrastructure on February 28, 2026, Iran moved to lock down the strait, which carries roughly 20% of global oil flows.
Iran International reports:
Tehran’s plan to monetize Strait of Hormuz
The article argues the waterway should become a strategic lever and “the most important fund to compensate Iran’s losses in the war.” Iran even argues that regional states would need to pay $50 per barrel under such a framework to compensate Iran’s losses and contribute to reconstruction. Ships belonging to Israel and the United States, it said, would be barred from the strait even under a different flag. However, Israeli and US vessels could use the waterway only if one sanction on Iran were lifted for each passage.
That said, there are no more political bargains. No more effective sanctions. And no more benefits just because you’re a neighbour country.
The World the Dollar Built Is Closing Up Shop
Here’s what’s actually happening beneath all of this.
The post-1945 world order rested on a simple deal: the United States provided security for global sea lanes, everyone priced oil in dollars, and the dollar’s reserve status let Washington run deficits indefinitely.
That deal is fraying at every seam. The US is now charging implicitly for canal access. Iran is charging explicitly for strait access. The Houthis spent the better part of two years effectively taxing Red Sea traffic at gunpoint. Maritime passage, once treated as a global common, is becoming a toll road — and the powers that be want to set up their booths.
The dollar doesn’t disappear overnight in this scenario. But its foundation, the credibility of the US as a neutral guarantor of open global trade, is quietly being replaced by something messier. A world where every chokepoint has a price, where the currency of that price is increasingly negotiable, and where the US is one toll collector among several.
That’s a different world than the one most investors are still pricing.
