Iran has declared the Strait of Hormuz closed after the United States targeted air defense sites and other military assets across the country in a second night of strikes Wednesday.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) threatened to shoot at tankers and commercial ships that attempt transit through the waterway.
The US military, however, has disputed the closure claim, saying on X that commercial ships continue to transit in and out of the strait.
So is the Strait of Hormuz open or shut? Ultimately, that call won’t be made by rulers in Tehran or Washington.
“It is not the US or even Iran who decides if the Strait of Hormuz is open or not. It is shipping companies,” Gregory Brew, a senior analyst at political risk consultancy Eurasia Group, told CNN last month during an interview discussing the long-term security of the strait.
“The strait will open when shippers have decided it is safe to transit again.”
By that measure, the strait could probably be described as effectively shut, if a little leaky.
Visible transits have collapsed to, at best, low double-digit figures from around 140 vessels a day before the war. There have been additional ‘dark’ transits through the strait, where vessels turn off transponders to avoid detection, but the point remains this: The shipping industry will ultimately determine whether the Strait of Hormuz is, in practice, open or closed to the movement of oil and other goods.
