The word “chokepoint” is becoming increasingly common in discussions about world affairs, in large part most recently largely because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually flows. But according to Edward Fishman, the author of an acclaimed book about chokepoints, the strait would only rank fifth on his list of the top five pressure points in global commerce.

Learn about the other four and much more about how countries and companies can navigate our new weaponized interdependence on the latest episode of FP Live. Fishman is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and has served in a range of roles in the U.S. government focused on economic sanctions. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or look for it for free on YouTube or Spotify. The audio podcast is available on all major audio platforms. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of my conversation with Fishman.

The word “chokepoint” is becoming increasingly common in discussions about world affairs, in large part most recently largely because of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas usually flows. But according to Edward Fishman, the author of an acclaimed book about chokepoints, the strait would only rank fifth on his list of the top five pressure points in global commerce.

Learn about the other four and much more about how countries and companies can navigate our new weaponized interdependence on the latest episode of FP Live. Fishman is also a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and has served in a range of roles in the U.S. government focused on economic sanctions. Subscribers can watch the full discussion on the video box atop this page or look for it for free on YouTube or Spotify. The audio podcast is available on all major audio platforms. What follows here is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of my conversation with Fishman.

Ravi Agrawal: Let’s start with a simple question. What exactly is a chokepoint?

Edward Fishman: Chokepoints are parts of the global economy where one country or a coalition of close allies has a dominant position, and there are few, if any, substitutes. Throughout history, most of the prominent chokepoints have been geographic, like the Strait of Hormuz, or the Strait of Malacca, or the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which connect the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. It’s quite obvious that cutting off another country’s access to these trade routes can inflict significant economic harm on them.

The more novel form of chokepoints, which is a child of the hyperglobalization period of the 1990s, are these economic chokepoints that involve financial systems. The dollar can be used as a chokepoint. Rare-earth minerals and magnets are a Chinese chokepoint. These are parts of the global economy that can be weaponized for geopolitical gain. And they’re also parts of the economy where, if you’re a company that is sitting on one of these chokepoints, it can be incredibly, strategically valuable and lucrative.

RA: If you had to rank the top five global chokepoints today, what would they be?

EF: The most potent and important chokepoint in the global economy is the U.S. dollar. It’s involved in 90 percent of all foreign exchange transactions. It’s effectively impossible to do global business as a multinational bank or company without access to the dollar. The other thing that makes the dollar such a valuable chokepoint is that the United States can cut off other countries from it without the use of military force, just by the stroke of a pen.

I’d say the second-most potent chokepoint—and I’d class a couple of them together here—are chokepoints that exist in the supply chains for advanced semiconductors. The reason being, we’re obviously in a fierce race for supremacy in........

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