OPINION: The Strait of Hormuz, the global tap Tehran opens, shuts, and monetizes at will

OPINION: The Strait of Hormuz, the global tap Tehran opens, shuts, and monetizes at will

Introduction: A stretch of sea, a weapon of economic mass destruction

Geography as an instrument of terror

There are places on the map that concentrate, within a handful of kilometers, the full weight of international politics and all its anxieties. The Strait of Hormuz is one of those places. 34 kilometers at its navigable width. That's it. That's enough to hold the global economy hostage. About 20 percent of all traded oil in the world moves through this bottleneck between the coastlines of Iran and Oman. In 2026, under Tehran and its Revolutionary Guards, that strait has become the most brutally wielded geopolitical lever on the planet.

Since February 28, 2026 — the date of the first US-Israeli strikes against Iranian nuclear sites — Iran has closed, reopened, rethreatened, and reopened again the Strait of Hormuz with a rhythm that borders on calculated economic sadism. Every closure announcement sends crude prices surging. Every reopening announcement deflates risk premiums. Tehran is playing the markets without even being listed on them.

The numbers that rattle trading floors

Before the 2026 crisis began, the strait handled an average of more than 130 ships per day in transit. At the peak of the blockade, that number dropped to near zero. On June 21, 2026, according to data from Lloyd's List Intelligence, only 33 vessels had crossed the strait in the preceding week. The following week that figure climbed back to 125 after the memorandum of understanding was signed. Then, on June 25, a Singaporean container ship, the Ever Lovely, was struck by a drone belonging to the Revolutionary Guards while navigating an alternative corridor mapped out by the International Maritime Organization. The IMO suspended its evacuation operations for stranded vessels. The cycle started over.

The June 17 memorandum: a 14-point peace — 14 ticking time bombs

What the agreement says — and what it leaves out

On June 17, 2026, presidents Donald Trump and Masoud Pezeshkian electronically signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding meant to end the conflict. Point one: immediate and permanent cessation of all military operations on all fronts, including Lebanon. The key point for the strait: Iran commits to allowing commercial vessels to pass freely for 60 days. In exchange, the United States lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports, and the US Treasury issues a general 60-day license permitting the sale of Iranian oil, suspending sanctions on Iranian oil and petrochemical exports until August 21, 2026.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirmed publicly on June 22: the agreement will allow Iran to sell its oil, mainly to China, and receive payment in US dollars — a first even compared to the 2015 nuclear deal known as the JCPOA. Approximately 24 billion dollars in Iranian assets frozen in foreign banks, notably in Qatar, are to be progressively unfrozen. The IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, is supposed to regain access to Iranian nuclear sites. The list is long. The American concessions are substantial.

The Lebanon clause: the poison inside the memorandum

But the agreement carries a fatal flaw. Point 1 requires a cessation of hostilities in Lebanon. Yet Israel is not a signatory to this memorandum. And Israel made it clear, as early as June 15, 2026, through Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, that it would remain in the security zone in Lebanon for as long as it deemed necessary. Result: the moment the Revolutionary Guards decide that Israeli strikes in Lebanon constitute a violation of the agreement by Washington, the tap shuts again. Iran built a self-triggering clause directly into the memorandum. That's not a bug. It's a feature.

June 20: the closure that almost happened

The announcement, the denial, the ambiguous reality

On June 20, 2026, the Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, Iran's unified military command, solemnly announced on state media the closure of the Strait of Hormuz to navigation, in response to continuing Israeli strikes in Lebanon and what it called American bad faith. The announcement hit markets like a bomb. Brent spiked. Shipping companies rerouted vessels. Western governments held their breath.

The American response was nearly instantaneous. Captain Tim Hawkins, CENTCOM spokesperson, stated with military coldness: "Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz." US forces, he said, "continue to monitor the situation to ensure it remains open." On Truth Social, President Trump escalated the rhetoric: "You close it, and you won't have a country. You won't even make it home." The two governments were in direct contradiction. On the water, some tankers kept moving; others turned back. The reality was as murky as the strait itself.

The June 25 attack: deliberate escalation

On June 25, 2026, the container ship Ever Lovely, sailing under a Singaporean flag, was struck by a drone off the coast of Oman, in an alternative navigation zone recommended by the IMO. A US official confirmed to the Associated Press that it was a Revolutionary Guards drone. The ship sustained material damage; no casualties were reported. The Persian Gulf Strait Authority — an Iranian body created specifically to control navigation in the strait — immediately posted on X: "Navigation outside routes designated by the Islamic Republic of Iran will not receive a security guarantee." The threat was explicit. The following day, CENTCOM announced retaliatory strikes against Iranian military infrastructure.

The mechanics of coercion: how Tehran works its tap

A history of strategic leverage

On March 1, 2026, three days after the first strikes, Iran announced the strait's closure to commercial navigation. The Revolutionary Guards boarded and attacked merchant vessels. Mines were laid in the shipping channel. Lloyd's of London underwriters suspended cargo coverage for transiting ships. By April 21, 2026, the IMO reported approximately 20,000 seafarers and 2,000 vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf. The International Maritime Organization was forced to launch a humanitarian evacuation operation for sailors — in what should be ordinary commercial waters.

Iran declared the strait closed at least three distinct times between March and June 2026 — on March 4, on June 20, and implicitly through the attack of June 25. Each time, the United States challenged those claims, and each time the reality on the water was ambiguous enough to move markets. That is the power of the lever: it doesn't need to be fully pulled to produce its effects. Permanent uncertainty is enough.

The calculated beneficiaries of chaos

Throughout all of this, China watched and waited. Beijing is Iran's primary oil buyer. It has everything to gain from an Iran weakened internationally but capable of selling its oil at a discount outside the SWIFT system. With the US temporary license, Iran can now sell its crude to China and receive payment in dollars — a strategic absurdity for Washington, which simultaneously reinforces the Sino-Iranian axis it claims to be containing. Russia, engaged in Ukraine, is equally content to see energy prices remain volatile. The enemies of Western stability all have a stake in Gulf chaos.

International law: the letter that gets ignored

UNCLOS and the right of transit passage

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) is unambiguous: the Strait of Hormuz, used for international navigation, benefits from the right of transit passage — an absolute right, non-suspendable, even by coastal states. Article 38 of UNCLOS stipulates that all ships enjoy the right of transit passage in straits used for international navigation. This right cannot be suspended by any state, coastal or otherwise. Iran ratified UNCLOS. Its repeated closures of the strait therefore constitute flagrant violations of both conventional and customary international law.

But international law is only effective when someone enforces it. The International Court of Justice can rule, certainly. But the timeline of international justice is measured in decades, while Brent prices fluctuate by the second. In the near term, only American military power — the 5th Fleet stationed in Bahrain — can physically guarantee passage. The United States demonstrated in April and May 2026, with Operation Project Freedom, that it could escort commercial convoys. The question is how long and at what diplomatic cost they are prepared to sustain that posture.

The Persian Gulf Strait Authority: institutionalizing the shakedown

The most troubling fact of this crisis is not the episodic closure of the strait. It is the institutionalization of Iranian control through the creation of the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a government body whose explicit mandate is to manage navigation in the strait — in other words, to charge a toll or require prior authorization for passage. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, during his Gulf visit on June 25, said plainly: "Once the final agreement is concluded, Iran will not be able to impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz." Iran, for its part, had already suggested at the time of the memorandum signing that it intended to implement "service fees" for transiting vessels. Legal experts consider such a practice legally untenable. Tehran is quite comfortable with that.

The Bürgenstock negotiations: 18 hours for next to nothing

The Swiss marathon of June 22

On June 22, 2026, in Bürgenstock, Switzerland, American and Iranian teams met for nearly 18 hours of direct negotiations. Vice President JD Vance and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi emerged with carefully optimistic language. Qatari and Pakistani mediators spoke of "encouraging progress." Points agreed upon included the establishment of a "deconfliction cell" to manage incidents in the strait, confirmation of IAEA inspector access to Iranian nuclear sites, and the progressive release of approximately 12 billion dollars in Iranian assets frozen in Qatar.

But on the central question — Lebanon — nothing moved. Araghchi declared that "the first real test of the agreements will be the halt of Israeli attacks in Lebanon." That test is one Israel has no intention of passing. The Netanyahu government has made the permanence of its presence in Lebanon a political existential statement. The deadlock mechanism is therefore complete: Iran conditions the opening of the strait on something it knows the United States cannot extract from Israel. It's a staircase with no landing.

Trump, brutal pragmatism, and its limits

Trump's response to this crisis is that of the Manhattan dealmaker he has always been: no ideology, only leverage. Trump declared on Monday June 22 that the United States has "total control" over the Strait of Hormuz and that the blockade could be reimposed in "15 minutes." He even suggested that if parties fail to reach a final agreement within 60 days, the United States might itself impose tolls on ships transiting the strait, for "services rendered." It is simultaneously a commercial war threat and an implicit endorsement of the very toll principle Tehran is pushing. Coherence is not a strong suit here.

Global economic impact: the numbers behind a structural crisis

Oil, gas, food

Before February 28, 2026, Brent crude was trading around 73 dollars a barrel. At the peak of the blockade, in April and May 2026, prices exceeded 92 dollars, according to data compiled by various market observers. On June 25, in a sign of relative easing, Brent briefly fell back below pre-war levels. But volatility itself has a price: insurance premiums for transit cargoes exploded, making the transport of goods more expensive for the world's poorest economies. The impact on global food supply — agricultural commodities being largely financed and transported through mechanisms tied to oil — was particularly severe in the least developed countries of Africa and South Asia.

Qatari liquefied natural gas (LNG), vital for supplying Europe and Asia, was especially affected. Qatar exports the bulk of its LNG through the Strait of Hormuz. A sustained closure would mean a direct energy crisis for Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea. That is why the first sign of reopening — four Qatari LNG tankers crossing the strait on June 22 — was hailed as a diplomatic event as much as a commercial one.

The winners of the crisis

In every crisis, there are winners. China continued buying Iranian oil throughout the blockade, through "ghost tankers" operating with their AIS systems disabled. Moscow saw its own oil exports gain in relative value while the market was disrupted. Marine insurers who maintained coverage — at exorbitant premiums — did record business. And American shale oil producers, who have no need of the Strait of Hormuz to export, benefited from higher global prices without bearing the logistical disruptions.

Lebanon: the permanent detonator

Why Israel will not withdraw

The Gordian knot of this entire crisis is Lebanon. Iran has invested decades and billions of dollars in Hezbollah as an instrument of regional power projection and as life insurance against an existential attack. The partial destruction of Iranian nuclear sites in the February-March 2026 strikes made Hezbollah even more central to Tehran's proxy deterrence strategy. For Iran, securing an Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon would be both a symbolic victory and a partial restoration of its deterrence posture.

Israel, for its part, views the current conflict as an opportunity to establish permanent "security zones" in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza — in direct violation of the US-Iranian memorandum. On June 25, 2026, Israeli-Lebanese negotiations were underway in Washington under American mediation, with a gaping divide: Lebanon demanded full withdrawal from all occupied localities; Israel offered partial, conditional withdrawal. The fifth round of negotiations had to be extended by a day on June 26 with no result.

The unsolvable equation and its consequences for the strait

As long as the Israeli military remains on Lebanese soil, Iran holds an unanswerable political argument to open or close the strait at its discretion. This is an equation that structurally benefits Tehran: the Iranian regime doesn't have to decide anything. It only needs to wait for Israel to strike in Lebanon — which happens regularly — and then pull its lever. Israeli immobility in Lebanon is the fuel for Iranian coercion over the Strait of Hormuz. Israel's Western allies should say this more clearly. They are not doing so, or not nearly enough.

The American military option: credible or decorative?

What CENTCOM can do

The US 5th Fleet based in Bahrain has considerable capacity to keep the strait open against Iranian will. Operation Project Freedom, launched on May 4, 2026, demonstrated that escorted convoys could get through. The combination of minesweepers, Aegis-equipped destroyers, and uncontested air superiority would theoretically allow the United States to guarantee freedom of navigation. CENTCOM did conduct retaliatory strikes on June 26, 2026 after the attack on the Ever Lovely, targeting Iranian missile and drone infrastructure as well as Iranian coastal radar systems.

But the permanent military option has its limits. It is costly. It is politically risky. And it does not resolve the fundamental problem: Iran can partially blockade the strait — by threatening, delaying, demanding authorizations — without ever fully closing it, making direct military intervention impossible to justify while maintaining economic uncertainty.

The doctrine of asymmetric threat

The Revolutionary Guards have spent three decades developing an asymmetric warfare doctrine specifically designed to neutralize conventional American military superiority in the Gulf. Swarms of fast attack boats, low-altitude anti-ship missiles, contact and influence mines, and now kamikaze drones constitute an arsenal capable of inflicting enormous economic damage without ever triggering a full military response. That is exactly what the 2026 crisis exposed: the United States can defeat Iran militarily, but it cannot end Iranian coercion at a politically and economically acceptable cost.

The 60-day window: three scenarios

The optimistic scenario: a partial nuclear deal

The first scenario, the most favorable, is that current negotiations produce within 60 days — by roughly August 17, 2026 — a nuclear framework agreement solid enough that Tehran gives up using the strait as a permanent lever. This would require a freeze on Iran's nuclear program under IAEA oversight, a progressive lifting of sanctions, stabilization in Lebanon through an Israeli-Lebanese agreement and partial Israeli withdrawal. That is the scenario American and Iranian negotiators evoke publicly. It is also the one that least resembles reality as it stands on June 26, 2026.

Even in this scenario, the question of control over the strait remains open. Iran created the Persian Gulf Strait Authority. That institution will not disappear with an agreement. And Tehran has clearly indicated that it intends eventually to impose "service fees" — a claim international law refutes but that no one is yet willing to challenge militarily on a permanent basis.

The middle scenario and the catastrophic scenario

The intermediate scenario, and the most probable, is chronic instability: the strait remains theoretically open, with periodic incidents, partial closures, ship diversions, structural uncertainty that keeps insurance premiums high and oil markets nervous. This scenario extends the current state indefinitely, with all its diffuse economic costs.

The catastrophic scenario — the least likely but not negligible — is a collapse of negotiations followed by a sustained closure of the strait, either through Iran's deliberate choice following a major new Israeli strike, or through a maritime incident that escapes both parties' control. In that case, the West faces an energy crisis of a magnitude comparable to 1973-74, with the economic, social, and political consequences one can imagine.

What the West should do — and isn't doing

The need for a joint Europe-US position

The Strait of Hormuz crisis reveals a gaping fracture in Western policy: the United States negotiates directly with Iran, but Europe — which structurally depends on Qatari LNG and Gulf oil — is largely absent from the process. The United Kingdom, which provides maritime surveillance through its United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, plays a technical but not political role. France and Germany, now consumed by their own debates on energy sovereignty, have not articulated a common position on the question of strait control.

What the West should do is conceptually simple: articulate a collective, firm position on the non-negotiability of freedom of navigation in international straits, backed by a multilateral military commitment — not just American — to guarantee that principle. What the West does instead: leave the United States to manage alone, criticize the concessions made to Iran, and hope that the 60-day truce leads somewhere.

The question of energy alternatives

Over the longer term, the strait crisis should accelerate what Western governments have been announcing for years without truly delivering: the diversification of energy supplies to structurally reduce vulnerability to Iranian coercion. American LNG terminals, renewable energy, European electricity interconnections, alternative pipelines from Azerbaijan or Norway — all of these exist but remain insufficient to absorb a major Gulf supply shock. The urgency of reducing dependence on Persian Gulf oil is not only environmental. It is a security imperative, in the most concrete and immediate sense of the word.

Accounting the coercion: has Iran won?

What Tehran obtained

Let's take stock. Since February 28, 2026, Iran has obtained, through the strait crisis and the negotiations that followed: a 60-day license to sell its oil freely, including in dollars; the progressive unblocking of at least 12 billion dollars in assets frozen in Qatar, with a path toward accessing the remaining 24 billion in other foreign banks; the ability to receive oil payments in US dollars — a historic first; a memorandum of understanding that conditions any future sanctions to prior negotiations; and the institutionalized creation of an Iranian strait-control body, the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, which has not been explicitly challenged.

In exchange, Iran accepted the return of IAEA inspectors — to sites that already sustained considerable damage during the 2026 strikes. It accepted a Lebanon ceasefire it can break at any moment by accusing Israel of violations. And it agreed not to impose tolls for 60 days — after which the question remains open. The ledger is unbalanced. Iran did not win the war militarily, but it did not lose the economic and diplomatic war either.

What this means for the Gulf's future

The 2026 crisis established a dangerous precedent: a state can close an international strait in violation of UNCLOS, demand colossal economic concessions, obtain those concessions, and emerge from the crisis with a strengthened geopolitical position. That precedent does not go unnoticed in Beijing, which watches with keen interest how a regional power can use a geographic chokepoint to constrain the world's greatest military power. The implications for the South China Sea and Asian straits are self-evident.

The 60 days of grace: a clock or a smoke screen?

What negotiators will have to resolve

The 60 days of the memorandum run from June 17, 2026. Before August 17, 2026, American and Iranian negotiators must reach a final agreement on: the nature and scope of Iran's nuclear program under international oversight; the long-term status of frozen Iranian assets; the maintenance or lifting of multilateral sanctions; the status of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the question of Israeli forces; and the future of navigation control in the strait. It is a massive agenda for a two-month window. Even the most optimistic negotiators do not hide that some of these questions will not be resolved in 60 days.

If negotiations fail or do not conclude in time, the US license expires on August 21, sanctions automatically reimpose, and Iran regains all justifications to shut the tap again. The question is not whether Tehran is acting in good faith. The question is whether structural contradictions — between Iranian demands and American impossibilities tied to Israeli policy — can be resolved in 60 days.

The Trump variable

One additional uncertainty dominates this entire crisis: the Trump variable. This president has already demonstrated he is capable of unpredictable decisions, of 180-degree strategic reversals, of Truth Social announcements that short-circuit months of diplomatic negotiations. The dynamics of the Strait of Hormuz could be reconfigured overnight by a presidential decision — in either direction — that was discussed with no one. That is the nature of what diplomats diplomatically call "procedural uncertainty" in the Trump administration. For oil markets that need visibility, it is one more risk stacked on top of all the others.

The real economic cost of strait coercion

Oil markets under pressure: price reactions and trade-offs

Every time tension in the Strait of Hormuz intensifies, oil markets react instantly. The geopolitical risk premium baked into the price per barrel rises, insurance for vessels crossing the zone swells, and refineries dependent on Gulf supply must build larger buffer stocks — at a cost. These effects are well documented, and their scale is directly proportional to the duration and intensity of the pressure signals sent by Tehran. The mere act of threatening is already an economic action with real consequences.

In 2026, with nuclear negotiations underway and the 60-day grace period granted by the Trump administration, markets are in a state of heightened vigilance. Energy traders have modeled partial or full strait closure scenarios — the numbers vary depending on assumptions, but a 30-day closure would produce an estimated rise of 40 to 80 dollars per barrel according to available models. That figure alone explains why Iran considers the strait its ultimate tool of economic deterrence.

Strategic alternatives: pipelines, routes, and resilience

Facing the structural coercion of Hormuz, Gulf producing countries and their clients have developed partial alternatives. Saudi Arabia has a pipeline to the Red Sea — the East-West Pipeline — that can bypass the strait for a portion of its production. The UAE developed a pipeline to Fujairah, on the Indian Ocean coast, for similar volumes. These infrastructures reduce but do not eliminate the vulnerability to an Hormuz closure. Their combined capacity falls far short of covering all normal strait flows — they offer a pressure valve, not a complete alternative.

The diversification of global energy supply, accelerated by the transition to renewables and by lessons from the Ukraine crisis, progressively reduces overall dependence on Gulf oil. But this transition is slow — measured in decades, not years. For at least the next decade, the Strait of Hormuz will remain the most strategically critical passage in the global economy, and Iran will hold the key. That geopolitical reality will not be resolved by current nuclear negotiations or existing sanctions. It demands a long-term vision that few actors appear ready to commit to.

Conclusion: the tap will keep opening and shutting

The geopolitical lesson of 2026

The 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis will stand in geopolitics textbooks as the perfect example of institutionalized economic coercion. Iran demonstrated that a regional power militarily vulnerable to the United States can nonetheless inflict disproportionate economic costs on the global economy by controlling a geographic chokepoint. The Revolutionary Guards regime turned 34 kilometers of water into a weapon of economic mass destruction whose mere threat of use is enough to reshape diplomatic balances.

What the 2026 crisis did not resolve — and will likely not resolve within its 60-day window — is the fundamental contradiction between the American aspiration to a comprehensive diplomatic settlement and the reality of a regional situation in which Israel, Iran, Hezbollah, and the Gulf states have deeply incompatible interests. The tap will keep opening and shutting. The question is whether the West will finally build a coherent strategy to make that tap less powerful — or whether it will continue to negotiate in emergency mode at every new closure.

The price of the status quo

The status quo has a price. An economic price, measurable in insurance premium dollars, unshipped barrels, food costs for the world's poorest. A strategic price, measurable in dangerous legal precedents and Iranian control institutions the world allowed to take hold without challenging them. And a political price, measurable in lost credibility for the rules-based international order. These are costs the West will pay one way or another, with or without an agreement in 60 days. The only difference is when it pays them, and at what rate of interest.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and my declared biases

I am Maxime Marquette, columnist and geopolitical analyst. My perspective is pro-Western, which means I believe in the value of rules-based international institutions, in freedom of navigation as a global common good, and in the necessity for liberal democracies to maintain their central role in the international order. I am skeptical of the Iranian regime and its methods. These biases necessarily color my analysis. I own them fully.

What I don't know and my method

I do not have access to transcripts of the Bürgenstock negotiations. I do not know the real positions of Iran's internal factions beyond what press correspondents report. The maritime traffic figures I cite come from secondary sources (Lloyd's List Intelligence, S&P Global) as reported by the Associated Press and The Guardian. I reconstructed the timeline of this crisis from verifiable primary sources. All direct quotations come from official statements picked up by internationally recognized news agencies.

Sources

Primary sources

The Guardian — Iran hails 'progress' as first day of US talks conclude — June 22, 2026

AP News — UN agency pauses evacuation through Strait of Hormuz after attack — June 26, 2026

CNBC — US-Iran peace deal grants access to Tehran nuclear sites — June 26, 2026

CNBC — Iran reportedly closes Strait of Hormuz again — June 20, 2026

Secondary sources

AP News — US and Iran sign initial deal to end war, ease sanctions and open strait — June 17, 2026

NPR — US lifts blockade on Iranian ports after deal takes effect — June 18, 2026

Wikipedia — 2026 Strait of Hormuz crisis (verifiable chronology)

The Hindu — Iran's military command announces Strait closure — June 20, 2026