According to The Washington Post, China and Iran have weaponised the global economy to corner the US by compressing global supply chains and using commercial ties to obtain strategic advantage.
The report cited China limiting rare earth minerals exports to the US last year and Iran's recent closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which led to a rise in global oil prices, as examples of adversaries beating Washington at its own game of economic warfare.According to the paper, the US Treasury Department conducted no pre-war analysis of the conflict's probable energy market repercussions, citing Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee.
Sriprakash Kothari, the nominee for assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy, told committee staffers "that not only did he not perform any work related to energy markets leading up to the war, but that he wasn't aware of anyone at Treasury who did," Wyden wrote in an April 9 letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.According to the Post, business linkages have arisen as potential pressure points on the global economy, as evidenced by the Covid-19 outbreak, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the instability in US-China ties.
The research states that the US, China, and Europe are strengthening their economies by investing in local manufacturing of critical products.The global economy was constructed for the peaceful atmosphere of the 1990s, when we expected China and Russia would be our allies. But we are living in an era of growing geopolitical struggle," said Edward Fishman, author of "Chokepoints," a history of the United States' approach to economic warfare.

Fishman stated, "This process is just going to keep going on until you have a new global economy," according to the Post.
According to the report, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has expressed public concern that the economic clout of other countries will "constrain our ability to make foreign policy" unless the US diversifies its supply lines.In a speech last year, Rubio stated, "Virtually every cutting-edge industry in the twenty-first century has some degree of vulnerability, and it has become one of the geopolitical priorities that we now face."

The Trump administration has been caught off guard when other countries have weaponised their economic advantages, according to The Post.
The president referred to China's embargo on exports of rare earth elements, which are essential components of both military and commercial goods, as "a real surprise" on social media in April of last year in retaliation for Trump's tariffs.
Similarly, when Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz, the US appeared to have no response.As it happens, not all of the choke points are in the United States. According to Henry Farrell, co-author of "Underground Empire," a book about economic warfare, "we are in a world where the US simply cannot get away with the stuff that it thought it could get away with."

According to the research, Iran's ongoing control over the strait has increased the cost of petrol and diesel for Americans and is starting to do the same for mattresses, fertiliser, aluminium, plastics, and fruits and vegetables.