Chaos Sown Abroad Returns Home: Macron in the Persian Gulf amidst Firestorm at Home

Western leaders are increasingly resorting to a familiar tactic: rather than acknowledging the failures of their own foreign policy, they blame domestic crises, protests, and inflation on external factors and “foreign enemies.”

Additional Diesel, But What About the Straits?

While blaming external factors for the rising diesel prices and inflation, Trump and Macron overlook their countries’ roles in restricting Russian energy exports, and contributing to crises that disrupted traffic through the Straits of Hormuz and Bab al-Mandeb. Macron, in his trip to the Persian Gulf countries between October 19 and 21, 2026, announced that he secured additional supply of diesel, including approximately 100,000 tonnes monthly from the UAE and Bahrain, respectively, in addition to 95,000 tonnes from Saudi Arabia for October. Likewise, Trump earlier announced securing additional supply of diesel from Russia, after his war against Iran and US proxy war against Russia caused shortages and high prices at home. Noteworthy, both have suddenly started expressing the quantities of diesel secured through supposed deals in tonnes and not barrels per day (bpd), as is commonly done. This change may be designed to inflate the volume of the insignificant additional supply, as the volume negotiated by Macron is equivalent to roughly 10% of the country’s demand. One may wonder how the additional volume will be delivered since Macron’s agreement did not address Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz or Ansar Allah’s counter blockade of Saudi Arabia, which have been........

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