Iran Seizes Ships in Hormuz as US Blockade Chokes Trade Despite Ceasefire

Donald Trump’s self-declared triumph over Iran is rapidly unraveling into a grinding stalemate that is inflicting real pain on the American economy while exposing the incoherence at the heart of his decision to launch the conflict. After weeks of U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, demolished military infrastructure and reduced swaths of Tehran to rubble, the president extended a fragile ceasefire indefinitely on Tuesday. His Truth Social feed painted a picture of total Iranian collapse: “They want the Strait of Hormuz opened immediately—Starving for cash! Losing 500 Million Dollars a day.” Yet the reality on the water and in the markets tells a different story.

Iranian forces seized two foreign container ships attempting to exit the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday and fired at a third, matching U.S. actions that have included the capture of an Iranian-flagged vessel earlier in the week and the interception of multiple tankers. The narrow waterway, through which roughly one-fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas passes in peacetime, has become the focal point of a naval shadow war that continues despite the nominal ceasefire. Tehran has effectively shut down commercial traffic, driving up worldwide energy prices. In the United States, gasoline costs have jumped 30 percent, delivering a direct hit to household budgets and helping crater Trump’s already dismal approval ratings to new lows.

The New York Times reported that Iranian officials viewed Trump’s ceasefire extension—issued after Tehran refused to return to negotiations—as proof that “Trump blinked first.” That assessment aligns with reporting from Maggie Haberman, who told CNN that the president is “clearly frustrated” and “would like to just be done with this.” Haberman noted that wars, once begun, develop their own intractable momentum regardless of a leader’s desire to pivot to other priorities. Trump’s public bluster about Iranian desperation, she suggested, does not appear to match the calculations being made in Tehran or even by intermediaries engaged by Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance.

Iranian parliamentary speaker and lead negotiator Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was blunt: reopening the strait is “impossible” while the United States and Israel continue “flagrant” ceasefire violations, including the naval blockade of Iranian ports that Tehran describes as “hostage-taking of the world’s economy.” The blockade, which began April 13, is costing Iran nearly $450 million a day according to some estimates. Yet Iranian leaders appear to believe they can endure that pain longer than Trump can withstand political damage at home. Their confidence is not baseless. The Islamic Republic’s leadership, though fractured after Khamenei’s death and the elimination of key commanders, retains enough cohesion to keep playing a weak hand aggressively.

The New Republic rightly points out that Trump never possessed a coherent rationale—public or private—for the initial assassination and bombing campaign beyond a nebulous wish for “regime change.” Eight weeks later, the regime remains in place, albeit badly damaged. Its missile production has halted, half its arsenal is degraded, and its nuclear sites have been hit hard. Proxies in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and Yemen have taken blows. Yet those same proxies continue to vow resistance, and the regime’s internal rivalries between the IRGC, Mojtaba Khamenei and civilian leaders have not yet produced the outright collapse Trump predicted.

Meanwhile the United States is paying its own price. A Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis estimates that Washington expended more than half its Patriot missile interceptors, over 850 Tomahawk cruise missiles, more than 1,000 JASSMs and hundreds of high-end THAAD, SM-3 and SM-6 interceptors in just 39 days of intense fighting. Replenishing those stocks will take years and billions of dollars. Senator Lindsey Graham, never one to let a conflict stagnate, told Fox News he spoke with Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and expects the blockade to expand, possibly going global. “To those assisting or thinking about assisting the Iranian regime in distributing its oil… you do so at your own peril,” Graham warned. The South Carolina senator called the current moment “the best chance since 1979 to change the behavior of the regime.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt insists everything is proceeding according to plan and that media coverage is exaggerated to harm the president. She described the conflict’s new phase as “Operation Economic Fury,” claiming Trump holds all the cards. Yet Trump himself told Fox News he is under “no time pressure” and has “no timeline” for ending the war—an admission that the four-to-six-week conflict he originally forecast has slipped into an open-ended ordeal.

The spectacle of ship seizures, dueling blockades and competing claims of imminent victory would be almost farcical if the stakes were not so high. Global energy markets remain volatile. The risk of miscalculation in the congested waters of the Strait of Hormuz is constant. And the original strategic objective—decisive regime change that would reshape the Middle East—has quietly been abandoned in favor of hoping that economic pressure might force a “unified proposal” from a fractured Iranian leadership that shows no sign of providing one.

Trump’s frustration is palpable. Iran’s hardliners, by contrast, appear to have taken his measure. They understand that American politics rewards quick wins and punishes open-ended quagmires. By keeping the strait closed and the economic pain flowing toward U.S. consumers, they are testing whether Trump’s appetite for this fight matches his rhetoric. So far, the evidence suggests it does not. The longer this unnecessary war drags on, the clearer it becomes that the United States has once again overestimated its ability to impose its will on a region that has repeatedly humbled great powers. The only remaining question is how much more damage will be done before someone finally admits it.