Vendor Lock-In and Strait Lock-In Are the Same Exit Problem

Tesco’s rejection of Broadcom’s 175-350% renewal premiums and the G7’s Evian agreement on 60% critical-minerals diversification by 2030 are not separate technology and geopolitics stories. Both describe the identical operational move: an actor with concentrated exposure writing an exit plan once the supplier can credibly threaten cutoff or price explosion. The same pattern appears in the UAE/Saudi Hormuz-bypass pipelines and the $300 B private US-Iran reconstruction fund; each is a capital project whose sole purpose is to reduce single-point exposure that has become politically or commercially intolerable. Apple’s memory-chip price warning is the downstream price signal of the same reallocation already underway in minerals and crude transit routes.