As the United States and Iran refuse to negotiate an end to the hostilities, the real battlefield now is the Strait of Hormuz. After realising that raining bombs and missiles is not enough to bring down the regime in Tehran, the Trump administration has placed its bets on economic suffocation. A naval blockade is squeezing Iran's oil income, the lifeblood of the Revolutionary Guards, while deliberately leaving civilian infrastructure like power grids and roads untouched. The logic is to hurt the regime without triggering a humanitarian catastrophe that would turn world opinion against Washington.
At the same time, the US has extended a ceasefire with Iran but refused to put any deadline on it. That vagueness is intentional. The longer the economic pain drags on, the thinking goes, the more space it creates for quieter, more pragmatic voices inside Iran to start pushing for a deal. It also keeps the administration from having to fight a full-scale war that most Americans don't want and that global markets would absolutely hate.
But the strategy is still costing Trump. The global economy is tanking, Russia continues its oil exports, the Gulf allies are worried—some are even requesting currency swaps. At home, approval ratings have slumped into the mid-30s, dragged down further by anxiety over the economy and immigration. Inside the Pentagon, things aren't much smoother. Critics are now openly questioning Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s competence to lead the Pentagon. Navy Secretary John Phelan was pushed out yesterday after a months-long clash with Hegseth. His replacement, Hung Cao, is stepping in just as naval operations in the Gulf are at their most intense. Congress is restless too, though not quite restless enough: a Senate resolution to strip the president of his war powers failed, but only just. And May 1 marks 60 days of the war (Trump formally notified Congress of the operation on March 2) and more stringent provisions of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, a law aimed at curtailing the president’s power to go to war without the approval of Congress, will kick in.
Iran, meanwhile, has responded by playing its own version of the same game. By effectively shutting the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping, Tehran has shown it can threaten the entire global economy without firing a single missile. Revolutionary Guards forces have been seizing foreign commercial ships, and Washington has been quietly looking the other way. “These were not US ships,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary after Iran seized yesterday two cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz and took them to the country's coast. “These were not Israeli ships.” So the Iranian action was not a violation of the ceasefire, she argued. Leavitt also asked the media not to blow “this out of proportion”.
Inside Iran, the crisis has had a consolidating effect on power, although the White House claims that the power structure in Tehran appears fractured. In fact, the main reason Trump gave for Iranian negotiators refusing to turn up in Islamabad for another round of talks was the alleged infighting in Tehran. However, the usual power struggle between competing factions and institutions in Iran has given way to hardliner dominance. When Foreign Minister Araghchi floated the idea of reopening the Strait to civilian shipping, he was shot down almost immediately. President Pezeshkian and senior negotiator and parliament speaker Ghalibaf have since aligned their views with the IRGC. Ghalibaf wrote on X yesterday that it was impossible for the Strait of Hormuz to be opened because of the blatant violations of the ceasefire by the US and Israel. “A complete ceasefire only makes sense if it is not violated by the maritime blockade and the hostage-taking of the world’s economy…. reopening the Strait of Hormuz is impossible with such a flagrant breach of the ceasefire.”
The ripple effects are being felt everywhere. Oil prices have spiked sharply, and Asian economies that run on Gulf energy are feeling it most acutely. Britain and France are quietly assembling a maritime coalition to eventually escort shipping through the Strait, but even if a ceasefire holds tomorrow, reopening it won't be quick. The Pentagon estimates that clearing naval mines alone could take months, if not more.
And the longer-term implications are making military planners nervous. The worry is that this conflict is setting an example that others could follow. China, for instance, could apply the same logic to Taiwan, squeezing semiconductor supply chains or blocking key sea lanes. The Bab-el-Mandeb, the Strait of Malacca, anywhere the world's trade funnels through a single bottleneck becomes a potential pressure point. There is also the uncomfortable reality that the US has poured enormous military resources into one corner of the world. With missile systems and interceptors tied up in the Middle East, Russia and China have more room to manoeuvre elsewhere.
Looking ahead, the prospects for a durable resolution remain uncertain. While Washington ultimately seeks to constrain Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities, experts caution that a comprehensive and lasting agreement may prove elusive. Tehran, even under pressure, is unlikely to abandon its strategic ambitions entirely.