Contrary to President Donald Trump’s claim that “other countries will be involved” in imposing a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz after ceasefire talks over the weekend ended without a deal with Iran, member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on Monday made it clear they had no plans to join Trump’s effort after news of the blockade was sent globally. oil prices skyrocket again.
“We are not supporting the blockade,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said said BBC on Monday before the shutdown began at 10:00 a.m. ET. “In my view it is vital that we open the strait and open it fully, and that is where we have put all our efforts in recent weeks and we will continue to do so.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan CALLED for the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened through diplomatic means, while Spanish Defense Minister Margarita Robles told Al Jazeera that Trump’s decision to block ships “entering or departing from Iranian ports and coastal areas” in the strait “makes no sense.”
“It’s one more episode in this whole downward spiral that we’ve been dragged into,” said Robles, who along with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have convicted the US and Israel’s decision to go to war with Iran and has refused to involve Spain’s military assets in the conflict.
Starmer called the closure of the strait “deeply damaging” and said this week the UK and France will convene a summit “to advance work on a coordinated, independent, multinational plan to protect international shipping when the conflict ends.”
US Central Command said Monday that U.S. forces “will not impede freedom of navigation for ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports,” backing Trump. the original Sunday’s statement, which he repeated Monday on Fox News, that he would impose a “total blockade” on the switch trade waterways.
News of the blockade came after Iranian negotiators accused the vice president JD Vance acting in bad faith in high-level ceasefire talks and Vance claimed that Iran would not comply with US demands regarding nuclear development.
The two-week ceasefire deal that was announced last Tuesday – shortly before a deadline Trump had set, saying the US would wipe out Iran’s “entire civilization” if the government did not reach a deal – sent oil and gas prices down $100 a barrel, but prices rebounded after Trump’s renewed threat of an embargo.
Brent crude oil prices were at $102.52 a barrel on Monday, up 7.7%, while U.S. crude was also up nearly 8% at $104.02. The UK wholesale gas contract for May rose 11.7%.
About 20% of global oil and liquid natural gas supplies passed through the Strait of Hormuz before Iran effectively closed the waterway after the US and Israel went to war, as well as large shipments of trash.
Priyanka Sachdeva, a senior market analyst at broker Phillip Nova, said The Guardian that the “market reaction” to Trump’s threat “underscores a simple but powerful reality: the risk of Hormuz is not theoretical; it is structural and it is real”.
“In today’s environment, every barrel of added risk in the oil markets carries one inflation price for the global economy,” said Sachdeva.
Trump’s threat of a blockade included any ship that has paid Iran a toll to pass through the strait since the Middle Eastern country began its blockade, with the president accusing Iran of “extortion”.
In Responsible Statecraft, Kelley Beaucar Vlahos has written on Sunday that under Trump’s threat, the US is now planning to block “major allies”.
“The Philippines is a treaty ally and gets 98% of its energy resources through the strait,” Vlahos wrote. “A Japanese ship carrying liquefied natural gas reportedly passed through the strait two weeks ago.”
Sarang Shidore, director of Global South program at the Quincy Institute for the Responsible State, said The US blockade “is another step towards a world that does justice”.
“Illegalities are being piled on top of illegalities. The attack on Iran that started this war was complicated by Tehran’s capture of the Strait of Hormuz. Washington’s blockade of the strait has further upped the ante,” Shidore said.
An adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei said that Iran has “huge, untouched levels” to fight back against the US blockade, while Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said Americans will soon “be nostalgic for $4-5 gas”.
In the conversation, international law Professor Donald Rothwell of the Australian National University has written that Trump’s blockade would “certainly” jeopardize the fragile temporary truce while rattling international markets.
“In purely legal terms, if the US imposes a blockade, then the ceasefire has ended and hostilities have resumed,” Rothwell wrote.
