Trump’s ‘Epic Fury 2.0’ won’t just spike gas prices. It will starve global agriculture

Recent reporting that QatarEnergy has begun buying long-term liquefied natural gas supplies from abroad as a hedge against another interruption through the Strait of Hormuz should be read as more than a business story. It is an acknowledgment that even one of the world’s largest energy exporters can no longer assume that its own physical network will remain available.If Washington and Jerusalem launch an Operation Epic Fury 2.0 after the midterm elections, Iran will not limit its answer to ships or isolated oil fields. It will move to break the physical system that turns Gulf oil and gas into usable energy. That system also supports export revenue, fertilizer production, and food supply.An interruption in the Strait of Hormuz is a transport crisis. A sustained campaign that disables processing plants, refineries and the grids that support them is a capacity crisis. The first can eventually be rerouted or insured. The second can continue long after the shooting stops because it damages the ability to restore production. Saudi Arabia’s eastern industrial spine shows why. Abqaiq prepares much of the kingdom’s crude for export. Ras Tanura combines export and refining functions in the same coastal system. The East West Pipeline and Yanbu would offer Saudi Arabia its principal route around Hormuz. But a bypass has no value if its pumps, terminals, or power supply are down. If Iran disables those systems together, Saudi capacity becomes stranded at the wellhead or the processing point.The same logic applies across the Gulf. In the United Arab Emirates, Ruwais connects the refining and petrochemical sectors, while Fujairah provides an outlet beyond Hormuz. Qatar’s Ras Laffan complex anchors its LNG trade and sits beside a major fertilizer system. Kuwait’s refineries and Iraq’s Basra export network are equally important to regional flows. Iran would not need to destroy every site. It would need to leave the system sufficiently unable to function that the rest cannot compensate.Too much discussion treats these assets as disconnected facilities. They are not. Refineries and LNG plants need steady power, water, trained crews, and access to their terminals. Desalination supports industrial activity and civilian life at the same time. If power and water fail, governments must divert fuel, equipment and repair crews to keep residents alive. That slows the recovery of export capacity when the world needs it most. The energy crisis becomes an obstacle to its own repair.This is why strategic reserves offer false comfort. Stockpiles can cover lost deliveries. They cannot turn damaged equipment into operating capacity. Spare production capacity means little when crude cannot be processed, refined, or loaded. A price forecast captures only the first effect. The deeper problem is a loss of capacity that cannot be fixed by paying more for oil.The first global shock would appear in refined products. Diesel moves freight. It keeps construction equipment and farms operating. It also powers backup generation when the electric grid is strained. An economy short of diesel does not merely pay more at the pump. It ships fewer goods, produces less, and sheds jobs. The effects then spread through every industry that depends on transportation, reliable power, or physical inputs.Financial stress would follow before the physical shortage reached its peak. Insurers would reprice risk or withdraw coverage. Banks would pull back from trade credit when no one could price the duration of the outage. Without coverage, ships stay in port. Without credit, cargo does not move. Capital would flee regional banks and markets as export earnings fell. Gulf governments could not offset that damage by collecting more for oil. High prices are useless to a producer whose refineries, LNG plants or ports cannot operate.That is the sense in which this could resemble a depression. The danger would not be one stock market crash. It would be simultaneous weakness in production, trade finance and public confidence.The relevant historical warning is from 1973 and 1974, when the Arab embargo restricted supply. It did not destroy the industrial base that produced, refined and shipped oil. Even so, oil prices quadrupled. Fertilizer prices nearly tripled from their 1972 and 1973 levels, while food grain export prices doubled in less than a year. The shock was reinforced by poor harvests and rising energy costs.A new conflict would be more dangerous because it would not concern withheld output alone. It would involve damaged capacity and uncertain repair timelines. The world would be trying to replace lost fuel, gas, and fertilizer at the same time.Now add the climate threat. NOAA expects a strong-to-very-strong El Niño through early 2027 and says a historically strong event remains possible. El Niño does not guarantee a food emergency. It does, however, raise the odds that drought, heat, or destructive rainfall will hit important crop regions when food systems are already under pressure.Fertilizer creates the delayed crisis. Farmers decide how much ammonia and urea to apply long before harvest. If they cannot secure it or afford it, they use less. Reduced yields emerge months after the initial energy shock has faded from the headlines. No emergency food purchase can recover a planting decision that was lost in advance.That sequence turns an energy shock into a food and social stability shock. Many countries already enter this scenario with weak reserves, high debt, and populations exhausted by inflation. Governments that subsidize fuel or bread would have to cut support or borrow at rates they cannot sustain. Either choice can expose a legitimacy crisis. In the most fragile states, it can produce unrest, displacement and the collapse of governments.The United States would not be insulated. Higher fuel and food costs would feed domestic inflation while shortages disrupted manufacturing and transport. Iran could also seek physical or cyber disruption against American infrastructure. But it would not need a successful strike on U.S. soil to inflict serious damage — a broken Gulf industrial system would do much of that work on its own.Elected leaders need more than an oil price range before authorizing another major campaign. They need one integrated assessment that begins with damaged physical capacity and estimates the time needed to restore it. It must then follow diesel and LNG shortages into trade finance, fertilizer use, planting decisions, food prices, and political stability.JD VANCE FOUND A NEW PEN PAL: AN IRGC TERRORIST WITH AMERICAN BLOOD ON HIS HANDSThose are not separate contingencies. They are stages of the same crisis.If Washington and Jerusalem cannot reckon honestly with that cascade before launching Epic Fury 2.0, they will not be managing escalation. They will be betting the global economic system on the hope that Iran declines to use the leverage it has spent years building.Colton Overcash is the founder of Vertex Strategies, a Charlotte-based government relations and strategic advisory firm with a presence in Washington, D.C. He previously served in a presidential appointment at the Department of Homeland Security during the Trump administration and is a former staffer in the offices of Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).