Ships moored at Bandar Abbas, along the Strait of Hormuz, on June 18, 2026. (Credit: Amirhossein Khorgooei /ISNA/AFP)
When the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran in February, Tehran was quick to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, shifting the focus of the conflict towards its implications for maritime trade, energy markets, and freedom of navigation, and revealing the extraordinary leverage Iran wields over the global economy. This leverage was powerful enough to force the United States to scale back its ambitions and calculations, and to sign a MoU with Tehran on terms that were, broadly speaking, favorable to the latter.To justify this, Donald Trump himself acknowledged on Wednesday that a continuation of the war could have led to an economic “catastrophe,” implicitly recognizing the pressure created by the closure of the strait. Read more Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon negotiated by Iran? Eyes turn to Trump ...
When the United States and Israel launched their attack on Iran in February, Tehran was quick to retaliate by closing the Strait of Hormuz, shifting the focus of the conflict towards its implications for maritime trade, energy markets, and freedom of navigation, and revealing the extraordinary leverage Iran wields over the global economy. This leverage was powerful enough to force the United States to scale back its ambitions and calculations, and to sign a MoU with Tehran on terms that were, broadly speaking, favorable to the latter.To justify this, Donald Trump himself acknowledged on Wednesday that a continuation of the war could have led to an economic “catastrophe,” implicitly recognizing the pressure created by the closure of the strait. Read more Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon negotiated by Iran? Eyes turn to...
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