More than six weeks into a war with Iran that has no clear offramp, President Trump has reached for a familiar tool: an oil blockade.
The goal is to cut Iran off from global trade, depriving the country of essential imports as well as oil-export revenue that its government relies on. The administration recently used similar tactics against Venezuela and Cuba.
This blockade, which went into effect on Monday at the Strait of Hormuz, comes with significant risk not just for Iran but for the global economy and energy supplies, at least in the short term. That is true even for the United States, the world’s leading oil producer, because American consumers and businesses have to pay the prevailing global prices for many commodities.
Iran has demonstrated that it is willing and able to strike ships in the region, and threatened on Monday to renew attacks throughout the Persian Gulf. That could make it that much harder to repair infrastructure and get oil production back to prewar levels.
“It may prove to be a far more challenging undertaking to blockade Iran than Venezuela,” RBC Capital Markets analysts wrote on Sunday, “and we would anticipate Tehran will increase attacks on regional energy facilities.”
More than 80 Persian Gulf energy facilities have been damaged, roughly a third of them severely, Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said on Monday. He said it could take up to two years to fully restore the region’s production. (Normally, about one-fifth of the world’s oil and substantial amounts of natural gas pass through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway south of Iran that the country has blocked most ships from using under threat of attack.)
Still, some analysts said that whatever the risk of more disruptions to the world’s energy supplies, Mr. Trump was right to try to turn the tables on Iran.
These experts noted that Iran had already inflicted significant economic pain on the rest of the world by cutting off access to much of the Gulf’s energy. All the while, Iran has continued exporting substantial amounts of crude oil and other fuels through the strait, even as neighbors have been forced to cut back, according to estimates from Kpler and S&P Global Energy.
“We have to find an exit to this crisis,” said Clayton Seigle, an energy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has backed the idea of blockading Iranian oil. “Iran will come under pressure if it’s not able to export its oil and receive those proceeds over time.”
Significant questions remain about the U.S. blockade and what it means for a fragile two-week cease-fire with Iran. Those details, including how and where the United States may try to intercept Iranian-linked vessels, will inform how difficult this operation will be. The effort has drawn little support from American allies.
Oil traders have mostly shrugged off news of the blockade and failed peace talks over the weekend. International oil prices traded just shy of $100 a barrel on Tuesday, up modestly from levels before the talks began.
The United States is not facing the kinds of fuel shortages that many other countries are dealing with. But gasoline, diesel and jet fuel are a lot more expensive than they were when the United States and Israel started the war on Feb. 28.
That is because oil and the fuels made from it trade on a global market, so if supply disappears somewhere, prices will rise everywhere as businesses and countries seek new suppliers. Even Mr. Trump recently seemed to acknowledge that prices at the pump were unlikely to fall considerably anytime soon.
Natural gas markets are different because the colorless fuel is harder to move around. Used to heat homes and generate power, natural gas is actually cheaper in the United States than it was when the war started. By contrast, the price of gas has soared in Asia and Europe, which import a lot of the fuel.
“Everybody will be touched, but some will be less affected than others,” Mr. Birol said on Monday.
If the United States succeeds in fully cutting off Iran, the country is likely to run out of oil storage capacity in two weeks or more, estimated Miad Maleki, a senior fellow at the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.
That would not only prevent access to a vital source of revenue but force Iran to start turning off oil wells, much as its neighbors across the Gulf have had to do.
“I can’t think of a better option to increase pressure on the Iranian regime,” said Mr. Maleki, an Iran expert who previously worked on sanctions policy at the Treasury Department under the Trump and Biden administrations.
Whether that is enough to get Iran to relinquish control over the Strait of Hormuz is another matter. Many said they struggled to see how shipping through the waterway would go back to the free flow of vessels that existed before the war.
“You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube,” Mr. Seigle said.
Jenny Gross and Max Kim contributed reporting.
Rebecca F. Elliott covers energy for The Times.
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