In his recent speech, President Trump suggested that he may end military action against Iran without the United States securing the opening of the Hormuz straits through direct military action. These straits, through which passed much oil designated for European and Asian countries, do not directly impact the United States, which has enormous oil reserves that are not sent through Hormuz. Other countries are more directly impacted by Iran’s illegal actions.

The United States is, however, indirectly impacted by the closure because of the increase in the price of oil which, at least until now, has been globally determined. But why is that so? Oil is a commodity like many others, and nations sell many commodities, with private companies or individual governments setting different prices, depending on many factors. That’s called competition and the open marketplace. But under current practices, oil prices are not subject to the usual competitive marketplace but rather to a price based on a single global market determination. 

There may be good reasons for such global price fixing, but they are not inherent in the nature of the product itself or in the nature of world markets in general. Most informed people with whom I have discussed this issue have no idea why the pricing of oil is not subject to the usual competition involving most other commodities. Even local gas stations compete with other over the retail price of a fill up, so why should the wholesale price of oil fixed by global conglomerates? An understandable explanation — more than just “that’s the way it’s always been” — is required.

So President Trump’s next challenge is to figure out a way of delinking the price of American oil from the fixed global price, if that can be feasibly done. American companies would then be free to charge lower prices to friendly buyers, including American gas stations.  This delinking would fit into Trump’s general belief in competition through open markets rather than fixed prices. It might require legislative or administrative action limiting the power of private American oil companies to profit unfairly, but there is precedent for that in the anti-trust laws, and especially in response to military and or enemy misuse of the global price fixing power to achieve improper military of diplomatic advantages.

Under the current global price fixing regime, American companies are getting windfalls by charging excessive prices that reflect higher costs by other oil companies that ship their oil through the Straits, but not by American companies that don’t. The American gas consumers are the victims of this unfairness, and the law should be capable of remediating this situation. 

Israel has suggested yet another alternative: to reroute oil currently shipped through Hormuz in overland pipelines in nations that would not misuse their geographical power over international waterways as part of a military strategy. This would obviously take time and regional cooperation. Delinking the price of American produced oil from the price of oil produced by foreign countries could probably be done more quickly.

I’m not an economist, so I may be unaware of considerations that may make such delinking unworkable, but American consumers of artificially high-priced gas are entitled to a commonsense explanation we can understand. It’s not enough to say “that’s just the way it is, and has always been.”

Both of these ideas are better than the current alternative and warrant serious consideration. Neither would be easy to implement and maybe they aren’t feasible. But on their face, both provide better options than the military ones currently under consideration, or simply abandoning the straits and allowing the status quo to continue.

In his recent speech, president Trump suggested that the countries whose oil shipments are being blocked from going through the Straits of Hormuz should be the ones who take military action to remedy what is essentially their problem. That seems right. But in the meantime, Iran is succeeding in turning American voters against our just military actions by causing pain at the pumps. If we can take economic and geopolitical actions that reduce the price of gas to American consumers, we should consider doing so.  So let’s put on our thinking caps and try to figure out ways of discouraging Iran from illegally using military threats to raise the price of gas to American consumers.

Originally posted on Real Clear World: https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2026/04/03/the_straits_of_hormuz_should_not_be_a_us_problem_1174648.html

For the first time in memory – and perhaps in history – an American president has attended a Supreme Court argument in person. I recall attorney general Robert Kennedy attending an argument back when I was a law clerk in the early 1960s. But I have seen no record of presidential attendance. Not that there is anything wrong with that, even if it was intended to convey the president’s strong belief in his side of the argument.

Any fear that President Trump’s presence would influence the justices was immediately belied by the nature of the justices’ questions – which suggested some hostility to the Solicitor General’s argument limiting birthright citizenship.

The argument itself was highly technical, focusing on the text, history and interpretation of the 14th Amendment, and particularly the words “and subject to the jurisdiction thereof,” which modify the general grant of citizenship to “all persons born or naturalized in the United States.” Although it is often difficult to predict Supreme Court decisions based on oral arguments, in this case it seems unlikely that the court will fully accept the administration’s interpretation.

My own view is that birthright citizenship is wrong as a matter of policy, especially if applied literally to virtually anyone born in the United States. Under that interpretation, if a pregnant European woman flying to China suddenly has labor pains requiring an unscheduled stop in the United States, where she gives birth and then immediately goes on to China, the baby is automatically a US citizen, even if it never sets foot in this country again. As a matter of policy, such a view of citizenship is absurd. Almost no other country accepts it, and it is doubtful that the framers of the 14th Amendment intended such a result in a case like that one. But that is not the typical case that affects thousands of children born in this country to illegal aliens who have lived here for many years. If these children are brought up in the United States and are subject to its laws for many years, their argument for birthright citizenship is far stronger.

So the question remains: which paradigm should govern – the weak case involving a child accidentally born here with no other connection; or the far stronger case of the child who has known no other country but this one for many years.

Perhaps the answer should not depend alone on the ambiguous and general words of the 14th Amendment that were written in a different historical context, but on contemporaneous legislation designed to implement and make current sense of these words. Indeed section 5 of the 14th Amendment explicitly provides that “the Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation the provisions of this article.” It would make sense therefore to leave to Congress the definition of “subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

Congress could make refined distinctions among children born in the United States — distinctions that make more sense than the geopolitical accident of birth alone. Children born here who have no real connection to this country should not get the benefits (or burdens) of citizenship. Congress could legislate that they are not subject to our jurisdiction. The harder questions involve the children of non-citizens who are here illegally. There are arguments on both sides of that fraught issue, most of which are dependent on the specific facts of every case. That is precisely why it is better to base decisions on specific, fact based, legislation than on general abstract concepts, such as “jurisdiction.”

It is possible therefore that there will be a majority upholding birthright citizenship, but dicta suggesting that Congress can limit its application by more narrowly defining which categories of children born in the United States are subject to its jurisdiction. Such a Solomonic division of the babies born here might well come closer to achieving broad consensus than an ideologically divisive abstract ruling.

President Trump’s presence in the Supreme Court was likely intended to send a message to his base rather than to the justices. But the real audience should be Congress, which may have the power to resolve this contentious issue with compromises that reflect the current values of our nation, including our history as a nation of immigrants.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15691753/trump-2028-president-term-alan-dershowitz.html