The list of hostages in the war waged by Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Iran is extensive. Thousands of miles away, two continents — Asia and Europe — are experiencing a price surge not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Just around the corner, half a dozen Persian Gulf countries that have suffered the brunt of the attacks — the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia — are seeing their oil and gas exports severely restricted by the double blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. It is an economic blow of biblical proportions, already prompting the first calls for help to the United States, the historic ally of this cluster of petrostates and, at the same time, the trigger of a crisis with unpredictable reach and consequences.

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Does it make sense to block a strait that has already been blocked for six weeks? That seemingly contradictory question takes on a very different hue in the ever-complicated mind of U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Monday carried out the threat he had voiced just hours earlier. A new gambit that has baffled analysts and investors. The Strait of Hormuz would have — indeed, according to the Pentagon, already has — a double lock: that of Tehran, aware that it is its greatest defence against U.S. and Israeli aggression; and that of Washington, for now a strategy as vague as it is potentially destabilising. A bold move that is difficult to put into practice.

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The fragile ceasefire between the United States and Iran held the great promise of the long-awaited reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the most critical maritime shipping route for global energy flows. That hope, in recent hours, has gone from vague to increasingly distant. Since Wednesday, when the truce began—with all the caveats one might add: bombs have continued to fall in various parts of the Middle East in recent days, especially in Lebanon—the volume of cargo ships has fallen even below the average of the days immediately preceding the agreement, with only a trace flow of tankers and LNG carriers. With the blockade announced this Sunday by the White House, things could get even worse: even fewer ships will pass. Or, perhaps, none at all.

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