(End of the American Dream)—It appears that China has decided to provide Iran with highly advanced anti-ship missiles that are known as “aircraft-carrier killers”, and that is really bad news for the U.S. Navy. Our vessels do not have any effective defenses against the Chinese-made CM-302. The information that I have to share with you in this article is extremely alarming. During this ceasefire, the Iranians have been feverishly rearming, and it appears that they are getting some new toys to play with. If the Pentagon does not take these threats seriously, we could end up with warships on the bottom of the ocean.
President Trump has repeatedly stated that he is not going to end the naval blockade of Iran until a permanent deal to end the war is reached.
But a permanent deal to end the war is not going to be reached any time soon, because Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei is pledging to relentlessly protect Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities…
In his message, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei further said that Iran will closely guard its nuclear and missile capabilities, an apparent response to the US’s desire to dismantle them, Al Jazeera reports.
Iranians view the country’s nuclear and missile capabilities “as their national capital and will guard them like water, land and air borders”, Khamenei said.
It is clear that Trump is not going to get what he wants from Khamenei.
So the blockade will continue, and the Iranian economy will deeply suffer.
Unfortunately, it appears that Iranian leaders are losing patience and may order an attack in an effort to break the blockade.
An Iranian media source is reporting that if the blockade is not lifted soon we will see “practical and unprecedented action”…
The continued American maritime piracy and banditry in the form of so-called “naval blockade” will soon be met with “practical and unprecedented action,” a high-ranking security source told Press TV on Wednesday.
Iran’s armed forces – operating under the Khatam al-Anbiya Headquarters as the war command – believe that patience has limits and that a punishing response is necessary if Washington maintains its illegal naval blockade around the Strait of Hormuz, the source said.
He further emphasized that Iran has proven in recent imposed wars that the United States no longer faces a passive or predictable adversary.
That is quite a threat.
In the statement that he just issued, Khamenei went even further.
He warned that U.S. vessels could soon find themselves on the bottom of the ocean…
Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who hasn’t been seen or heard from in person since he was elevated to the top job, said that the only place for Americans in the Persian Gulf “is at the bottom of its waters”, according to state TV.
He also claimed that Tehran’s “new management” of the Strait of Hormuz would “bring calm and progress” and economic benefits to all nations.
Khamenei said Iran would eliminate “the enemy’s abuses of the waterway”, adding that his country shared a common fate with other nations in the region, but “foreigners who commit evil” had no future there.
How can Khamenei be so confident?
After all, the Iranians have not been able to sink a single U.S. warship so far.
Well, it looks like the Chinese have decided to offer a helping hand.
According to Reuters, six different sources have confirmed that “Iran is close to a deal with China to purchase anti‑ship cruise missiles”…
Iran is close to a deal with China to purchase anti‑ship cruise missiles, according to six people with knowledge of the negotiations, just as the United States deploys a vast naval force near the Iranian coast ahead of possible strikes on the Islamic Republic.
The deal for the Chinese‑made CM‑302 missiles is near completion, though no delivery date has been agreed, the people said. The supersonic missiles have a range of about 290 kilometres and are designed to evade shipborne defences by flying low and fast. Their deployment would significantly enhance Iran’s strike capabilities and pose a threat to U.S. naval forces in the region, two weapons experts said.
The CM-302 missile is extremely difficult to intercept, and it is known as an “aircraft-carrier killer”…
Nonetheless, if the CM-302 were deployed along the Iranian coastline, it could hit almost any target anywhere in the Persian Gulf, in the Strait of Hormuz, and most of the Gulf of Oman.
Not surprisingly, the YJ-12 is defined as an “aircraft-carrier killer” by the PLA.
Although its existence had been known for some years, there was initially very little information about the system or any photos of an operational version—a sign that the PLA wanted to hide its performance parameters and maintain technological surprise.
Will the Iranians use these Chinese-made missiles to try to sink one of the aircraft carriers that the U.S. has deployed to the region?
At the beginning of the war, there was a lot of talk that the USS Abraham Lincoln could be targeted, and so it was kept quite a distance from Iran.
But now these new missiles will allow Iran to strike ships at a much greater distance.
Meanwhile, we are being told that the U.S. is deploying some new missiles to the Middle East as well…
The US CENTCOM has requested that the long-delayed Dark Eagle hypersonic missile be sent to the Middle East for potential use against Iran, marking the first time Washington would deploy the technology, the Bloomberg news outlet reports.
The request by US CENTCOM was made after Iran shifted its missile launchers out of range of the US Army’s Precision Strike Missile, the current technology it has deployed, a person with direct knowledge of the request tells Bloomberg, who adds the request to the military is still pending.
This is yet another indication that the U.S. is gearing up for more fighting.
On Thursday, President Trump was scheduled to receive an important briefing on potential military options…
President Donald Trump on Thursday is set to receive a briefing from U.S. Central Commander Adm. Brad Cooper and other military leaders on potential strikes in Iran, Axios and Reuters reported overnight.
One of the potential military options that Trump will reportedly be considering is a “short and powerful” wave of airstrikes…
CENTCOM has prepared a plan for a “short and powerful” wave of strikes intended to break the logjam and force Iran to be more flexible with its demands, Axios reported Wednesday.
Other options being discussed include a special forces operation to secure Iran’s supply of highly enriched uranium or taking actions to gain more U.S. control over the strait, according to Axios.
Of course any new attack by the U.S. will likely provoke a very strong response from the Iranians.
In fact, one Iranian official is pledging that there would be “long and painful strikes” in retaliation…
IRGC Aerospace Commander says Iran will respond with “long and painful strikes” even if the US attack is “short and limited.” US ships will “follow the same fate of US regional bases.”
It appears that Israel is getting ready for more military action too.
Israel’s Defense Minister is warning that his nation “may soon be required to act again to ensure the objectives are achieved”…
“Iran has suffered extremely severe blows over the past year, blows that have set it back years in all areas,” Katz continued at a military ceremony. “US President Trump, in coordination with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is leading the effort to complete the campaign’s objectives in a way that ensures Iran will not return to being a threat to the existence of Israel, to the United States, and to the free world for generations to come,” he added. “We support this effort and provide the necessary backing, but we may soon be required to act again to ensure the objectives are achieved.”
Once fighting resumes, I expect it to be even more intense than before.
Both sides will understand that there will be no negotiated solution, and so both sides will be going for the jugular.
I am entirely convinced that Iranian leaders are willing to escalate matters as far as they possibly can in order to achieve victory.
If the fighting goes long enough, we will likely get to see all of the new weapons that they have been accumulating, and that won’t be good news for anyone.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.