Trump did not announce the blockade during a press conference. It appeared on Truth Social on Sunday night in all caps, announcing that the U.S. Navy would start “BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.” Hours earlier, peace negotiations in Islamabad had broken down. According to Trump, nuclear was the point of contention. Everything else had been decided. However, the crucial element had not. Thus, the Navy, dubbed “the Finest in the World,” was dispatched to the Persian Gulf to punish a nation he accused of engaging in “world extortion.”
Twenty-one ships were returned to Iranian ports in less than a week. A video clip of an American warship directing a merchant ship to divert in the Gulf of Oman was released by U.S. Central Command. The actual Strait of Hormuz opened, closed, opened, and then closed once more. At one point, the first passenger ship to cross the strait since February was an empty cruise ship flying the Malta flag. After docking in Dubai for 47 days, they finally set sail for Muscat. On a Friday, that was the news. Iran reinstated controls by Saturday, and by Monday, two ships were reported to have been fired upon; one was off the coast of Oman, and the other was northwest of Iran. An outbound cargo master told UKMTO that the ship had “stopped in the water.”
Anyone who watches markets has had to get used to a peculiar rhythm to all of this. More oil is moved by a Truth Social post than by an OPEC meeting. When Iran declared the strait “completely open” on April 17, Brent fell more than 8%. By Monday the 20th, it was rising once more following the U.S. seizure of a cargo ship flying the Iranian flag. Investors appear to think—or wish to think—that this will result in a deal. In America, the cost of gas is already more than $4 per gallon. The Federal Reserve is stuck. In a Las Vegas interview, Trump referred to the war as “our little diversion.”
Allies are not as optimistic. The United States was not present at the forty-nation virtual summit that Macron and Starmer called in Paris to organize a neutral escort mission for tankers. Israel wasn’t either. The French defense minister made it clear that France, Belgium, and the Netherlands are capable of minesweeping and will offer “fully supported escort services” (not offensive) to allow ships to pass. In a subtle way, it was a reprimand. In response to Europe’s refusal to join the blockade, Trump has publicly threatened to withdraw the United States from NATO. At a Turning Point rally in Arizona, he referred to the alliance as “absolutely useless.”
The situation inside Iran is dire in a way that is difficult to depict on a market chart. Over two million people have lost their jobs, according to a deputy labor minister this week. Two refineries, one of which had a tank that could hold roughly a million barrels of crude, were on fire, according to satellite photos. On April 10, Sentinel-2 photographed an oil slick visible from space at the Lavan refinery that was leaking into the Persian Gulf. Even the state media footage of Army Day parades in Tehran, with women carrying rifles past portraits of children killed in the Minab school strike, has a funeral-procession feel to it.
It’s difficult to ignore how much of the world economy is currently dependent only on a precarious two-week ceasefire. Trump hinted on Tuesday that he might not renew it. “So, you have a blockade,” he said to reporters, “and unfortunately we’ll have to start dropping bombs again.” Shipping companies such as Hapag-Lloyd stated that if insurance is clear and the Iranian government provides a clear corridor, then they would travel through Hormuz. A global energy system would require a lot of ifs to function.
This could be a game-changer, a permanent rewiring of who pays whom for the right to transport a barrel of crude across a 21-mile water gap. Alternatively, as has happened numerous times in the last two months, an X post in Tehran or a Truth By dinnertime, a social outburst in Washington turns everything around. The ships wait for now. There is oil. Additionally, every time a master calls in another attack, a small group of eighteen watchkeepers in Portsmouth continue to answer the phone.
