According to convicted felon and court-certified sexual predator Donald Trump, A blockade went into effect for the Straits of Hormuz at 10 a.m. EDT but those who monitor the limited traffic since the start of the U.S. – Iran was say there is not much to block.
Reports Jenny Gross of The New York Times:
Ahead of the U.S. blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, set to go into effect at 10 a.m. Eastern time, some vessels were still transiting, though volumes were very low compared to before the war, said Alexis Ellender, an analyst at the global trade analysis firm Kpler.
“There is still a trickle of trade making its way through,” he said. But the risk appetite for major shipping companies is “incredibly low.” Sending their vessels through the strait is “just not worth it for them,” he said.
The Times full team of Aaron Boxerman, Isabel Kershner,Jenny Gross and Eric Schmitt report:
A U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz began Monday as an effort to raise pressure on Tehran, threatening a fragile cease-fire between Iran and the United States as European countries rejected involvement in the move.
A U.S. military official confirmed the blockade was in effect without providing additional details, and there was no indication of any incident in the blockade’s first 90 minutes. President Trump said on social media shortly after it started that any Iranian ships that approached the blockade would be “immediately ELIMINATED.”
Mr. Trump’s announcement of the blockade on Sunday came after high-level talks over the weekend between American and Iranian negotiators ended without a breakthrough.
Now Mr. Trump wants to prevent Iran from profiting from oil exports and force its leaders to accept American conditions for ending more than a month of war. Iranian forces have largely barred Western tankers and ships from transiting the strait, a Persian Gulf waterway through which about one-fifth of the world’s oil typically passes. The price of oil has soared by more than 50 percent at times since the war began in late February.
The U.S. military said that it would block ships “entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas” while allowing other vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz on their way to or from non-Iranian ports.
Mr. Trump had conditioned the two-week cease-fire with Iran, which went into effect last Wednesday, on Iran reopening the strait. But in practice, only a handful of tankers have passed through the waterway, with most others avoiding it for fear of Iranian mines or other interference. Two tankers linked to Iran — one carrying naphtha, a petroleum product, and the other carrying gas oil — slipped through the strait hours before the blockade deadline.
Iran warned of repercussions. Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesman, said Monday that if Iranian ports were threatened, “no port in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman will be safe.” The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose about 7 percent on Monday, to $102 a barrel. U.S. markets opened slightly lower after stocks fell in Asia and Europe.
Experts on Iran questioned whether a U.S. blockade would force Iran’s leadership to accept terms that five weeks of war and the killing of many Iranian leaders had not. The Trump administration has been insisting on stopping Iranian nuclear enrichment, as well as confiscating stockpiles of enriched uranium it says could form the basis for a bomb.
European leaders, already frustrated by Mr. Trump’s military campaign in Iran, quickly distanced themselves from the blockade, despite his promise “that numerous countries are going to be helping us with this.” Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain said in a radio interview that the United Kingdom would not participate, while Spain’s defense minister said the maneuver “makes no sense.”
