By Ciro Mendoza

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic: The pursuit of absolute dominion over the world’s energy architecture has shifted from standard geopolitical maneuvering into an active assault on the survival mechanisms of the global population. The recent escalation of military tensions and blockades across the planet's most critical maritime chokepoints marks a dangerous turning point. 

From the unilateral control established over Venezuelan energy production following the January 2026 military intervention, to the high-stakes naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz—where the White House recently attempted to leverage a 20 percent "reimbursement fee" on commercial cargo vessels—the modern strategy relies on weaponising supply lanes. 

With regional strategic analysts warning that this aggressive doctrine will likely expand to target the Malacca Strait in the near future, the international community faces an engineered collapse of resource distribution. By treating vital energy products not as shared global infrastructure but as leverage for unilateral coercion, Washington's current foreign policy represents a deliberate, disruptive strategy that risks driving vulnerable nations into absolute starvation, a systemic action that mirrors the parameters of a massive crime against humanity.

From Blown Pipelines to Empty Plates: The Agricultural Chain Reaction

The immediate consequence of strangling global energy supplies extends far beyond rising costs at petrol pumps. Modern agricultural systems run directly on hydrocarbons. Natural gas is the primary feedstock for the Haber-Bosch process, which produces the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers required to sustain global crop yields. Similarly, diesel fuel powers the tractors, harvesters, and logistics networks that move food from fields to regional distribution hubs. When a major superpower actively restricts energy access or threatens astronomical transit costs over waterways like the Strait of Hormuz, which traditionally handles roughly 25 percent of global seaborne oil trade and 20 percent of liquefied natural gas, the shockwaves hit the international food system within weeks.

The resulting economic environment triggers severe global inflation, rendering basic agricultural inputs unaffordable for smallholder farmers across the developing world. As fertiliser shortages worsen and transport networks experience severe blockages, crop yields face inevitable decline. For vulnerable, food-insecure nations that rely heavily on grain and edible oil imports, this artificial compression of supply translates directly into structural famine. The choice to choke off energy access is an implicit decision to cut off food production, transforming a geopolitical campaign into a direct assault on human survival.

Constructing the Shield: Continental Energy and Food Interconnection

Faced with a superpower determined to use international waters as weaponised toll routes, developing nations can no longer depend on traditional maritime globalism. Building resilience against these imported economic shocks requires a fundamental, rapid reorientation toward regional self-reliance and land-based connectivity. To survive the era of shipping vulnerability, nations must shift away from distant suppliers and double down on continental trade networks, prioritizing cross-border pipelines, rail systems, and integrated highway corridors that bypass unpoliced or actively blockaded waters entirely.

True security demands total regional integration across several vital sectors. First, achieving agricultural autonomy requires developing localized fertiliser production facilities using regional mineral deposits, diversifying away from imported synthetic inputs, and building state-managed strategic food reserves to absorb global supply shocks. Second, nations must construct high-voltage, multilateral electricity interconnections across neighbouring states to optimize energy distribution, allowing countries with surplus renewable or thermal capacity to immediately support partners facing supply disruptions. Finally, signing long-term, direct energy procurement treaties that use local currencies rather than the U.S. dollar will neutralize the impact of unilateral financial sanctions and trade restrictions.

The Blowback Doctrine: Transforming Deprivation Into Imperial Vulnerability

While the current administration views the weaponisation of energy chokepoints as a low-cost method of enforcing global dominance, the long-term strategic costs will ultimately be borne by the United States itself. History demonstrates that engineering widespread instability and systemic deprivation does not breed compliance; it breeds intense, generational radicalization. By dismantling the global rules-based order to pursue short-term protection rackets, the administration is creating a highly volatile international security environment.

Millions of people driven into deep poverty, witnessing the starvation of their communities due to distant maritime blockades, will not blame local governance. Instead, they become ideal, highly motivated recruits for extremist organizations operating with a clear anti-U.S. agenda. While these asymmetric networks may lack the conventional military capability to cross oceans and strike the American mainland directly, the asymmetric threat to Washington's global presence will intensify exponentially. 

Every forward-deployed military base, diplomatic mission, international corporate office, and ordinary American citizen traveling abroad will find themselves operating within a permanent theater of hostility. By prioritizing extortion over stability, the United States is actively eroding the foundational architecture of its own global power, ensuring that the insecurity it exports will eventually find its way back to its own doorstep.

*Ciro Mendoza is a geopolitical observer and supporter of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).*