THE PIRATE KING July 17, 2026

What do Robert Louis Stevenson, Milton Caniff, John Derek, Johnny Depp and Donald Trump have in common?

You’re stumped? No prob. Here’s the skinny:

Stevenson (1850–94) wrote “Treasure Island,” published in book form in 1883.The novel gave us one of fiction’s most unforgettable characters, the pirate Long John Silver.

Milton Caniff (1907-88) was a cartoonist responsible for a comic strip in the newspapers I read as a kid, “Terry and the Pirates.” Originally, it was set in the “mysterious Orient.” 

John Derek (1926–98) starred as Prince Roland in the 1953 Hollywood film “Prince of Pirates.” I saw the movie as a kid and loved it. I thought about becoming a pirate if I didn’t play baseball in the major leagues (Pittsburgh Pirates) or get involved with operetta (“Pirates of Penzance”). 

Johnny Depp (b. 1963) you know. He starred in the “Pirates of the Caribbean” film franchise. The first film, “The Curse of the Black Pearl,” was released in 2003. The movies were based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland.

Stevenson, Caniff, Derek and Depp all dealt with make-believe piracy. Donald Trump recently set his sights on being a real pirate, although that career ambition seems to be on hold.

Last Monday, Trump announced that the United States was going to take over the Strait of Hormuz—open pre-war. Iran would no longer block ship traffic and play havoc with the price of oil, fertilizer and the world economy in general. The U.S. Navy would guarantee all ships safe passage through the Strait.

Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum! (Thanks R.L. Stevenson.) Trump applied a small catch. Every ship would pay a fee (yes, a toll) equal to twenty percent of the cargo it carried. That equates to millions of dollars for a single oil tanker’s passage. Which would raise the price of oil even more. Which would impact most Americans and the world at large.

So what! The U.S.A. would be raking in the coin. Isn’t what that being a superpower is all about? 

However, while Trump considered passing out eyepatches and Oakland Raiders football helmets to his cabinet, and having the skull-and-crossbones flag raised on all Navy ships, his toadies were not necessarily on board.

Freedom of the seas has long been a key tenet of U.S. foreign policy. In late June, before addressing the Gulf Cooperation Council, Secretary of State Marco Rubio (formerly called by Trump, “Little Marco”) said, “No country is allowed to charge tolls or fees on an international waterway. That’s existing international law. That’s the way it is in international waterways all over the world, and that’s the way we expect it’ll be here.”

But Little Marco, what does respect for the law have to do with Donald Trump?

Another Yo, ho, ho! On Tuesday, America’s would-be Blackbeard (code-named TACO) announced that the United States would not impose tolls. Ships would pass free—if their countries invested big bucks in the U.S. I suspect that this is not playing well across the globe.

And the war continues.

What idiotic ploy will America’s Pirate King come up with next? Send a carrier group to landlocked Nepal? Honestly, I can’t begin to guess. But whatever it is, it will push America towards walking the plank. Yet again.

The post will take the next two weeks off and return on Friday, August 7.

Enjoy a great read about America’s 20th-century flirtation with authoritarianism in my novel RIDE THE TYGER. Order from Amazon, barnesandnoble.com, iuniverse.com, or your favorite bookstore.