President Donald Trump’s U.S. naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, implemented Monday at 10 a.m. EST, was breached within hours by at least four Iran-linked vessels, according to BBC tracking data published on Tuesday.
Trump instructed the Navy to “seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that has paid a toll to Iran,” with the military pledging impartial enforcement. However, ship tracking data revealed vessels including the Rich Starry, a U.S. sanctioned Chinese oil tanker, crossed the strait without incident Monday overnight.
The Elpis, another sanctioned tanker from Iranian port Bushehr, also breached the blockade.
China condemned the blockade as “dangerous and irresponsible,” with President Xi Jinping warning against reverting to “the law of the jungle,” according to reporting by NBC.
News outlets could not confirm whether vessels used “spoofing” to conceal locations.
Energy experts, like senior scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University Karen Young, question the blockade’s effectiveness. Young told CNN Sunday Trump’s blockade would only exacerbate the increasing scarcity of oil.
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