If the interaction between the U.S. and Iran can be compared to a poker game, the U.S. Navy’s breaking of the blockade isn’t just Trump winning a round—it’s more like the president simply snatched the cards right out of Iran’s hands.
Tehran has almost no cards left beyond Hormuz, except perhaps disrupting shipping in the Bab el-Mandeb Strait—a significantly weaker card whose execution depends on Houthi cooperation, something that’s far from certain right now. That’s the reason for Iran’s outbursts yesterday (Monday), and what looks like a desperate decision to re-ignite the region.
It’s important to understand that even before the ace Trump played today—breaking Iran’s blockade while the American blockade on Hormuz continues to choke Iran—Gulf states had already managed to erode the effectiveness of blocking the strait by roughly 25% to 30%.
They did this by pumping millions of barrels of oil daily through land-based pipeline infrastructure that bypasses Hormuz—about four million barrels of Saudi oil to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea, plus another 1.5 million barrels of Emirati oil to the port of Fujairah in the Gulf of Oman.
If we assume that from now on the U.S. Navy escorts just a few individual tankers out of Hormuz each day, each such tanker carries on average between one and two million additional barrels—and that already significantly reduces the effectiveness of the Iranian card.
Iran’s blockade of Hormuz, which some initially hailed as “strategic genius,” is increasingly revealed as a fatal mistake that could ultimately lead to the regime’s collapse. President Trump, who is often mocked in certain circles, has turned the tables on the Iranians and pressed against them the very gun they tried to aim at America and the world.