Saudi Arabia Begged Trump to Bomb the Houthis. He Refused.

September 11, 2026 - Oil dropped 1.7% today even after Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline went offline (3.5 million barrels a day of exports) and confirmation that Saudi production just hit a 36-year low — supply news that should have sent prices higher. Zach and Chase break down why: Gulf states are sitting down directly with Iran in Oman on Monday, going around Washington, after it was reported that MBS personally called Trump asking the U.S. to bomb the Houthis and was turned down. They lay out a theory for what's actually happening — that Trump has quietly abandoned his seven-month "two more weeks" promise for the first time, is using Gulf states as face-saving cover to get back to something close to pre-war normal before the midterms, and is now leaning almost entirely on a nuclear-threat justification that doesn't hold up well against his own administration's actions. Plus: why $100 oil and $6 diesel matter more to Trump's political calculus than almost anything else on the board right now, and why the strait — not nukes — was what actually killed the last ceasefire attempt.

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