The Trump administration said late Tuesday that it has now locked down Iranian ports and cut off the sea trade that keeps most of Iran’s economy alive.
US Central Commander Brad Cooper said: “A blockade of Iranian ports has been fully implemented as US forces maintain maritime superiority in the Middle East. US forces have also completely halted economic trade going in and out of Iran by sea.”
US forces are now blocking ships from passing through the Strait of Hormuz
The US military said it had more than 10,000 troops, over a dozen Navy ships, and fighter jets spread across the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea for the blockade operation.
According to Brad, in the first 24 hours of the blockade, not a single ship got through the blockade line, and six merchant vessels were allegedly ordered to turn back and re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman.
Even so, a few ships still made the run through Hormuz under heavy risk, with Maritime intelligence company Windward saying at least two vessels completed the passage on the first full day of active US enforcement.
One of them was Rich Starry, a Chinese-owned tanker under US sanctions that left the Gulf on Tuesday.
About 98% of Iranian oil exports go to China, which puts extra pressure on US-China ties just weeks before Trump is set to travel to China in mid-May.
To make matters worse, a Financial Times investigation allegedly found that Iran used a Chinese spy satellite to “target US military bases across the Middle East during the recent war.”
Trump, however, claims that Xi Jinping has told him he is not in bed with the Iranians. “[Xi] responded to a letter that I wrote because I had heard that China is giving weapons to, I mean, you’re seeing it all over the place, to Iran — that China is giving weapons. And I wrote him a letter asking him not to do that, and he wrote me a letter saying that, essentially, he’s not doing that,” said Trump.
Trump tries to keep Jinping hangout alive as India gets 4 million barrels of Iranian oil
Public opinion in the US has also been moving a bit on China. A new Pew Research Center survey released after polling in March found that 27% of Americans now have a favorable view of China.
That is up six percentage points from last year and nearly double the low seen in 2023, when the alleged Chinese spy balloon story added to damage already done by the trade war and the Covid period. Fewer Americans now call China an enemy. More call it a competitor. About one in ten say China is a partner of the US.
Relations between Washington and Beijing had steadied after Donald Trump and Xi Jinping met in South Korea last year and cooled an escalating trade fight.
The two leaders are expected to meet in Beijing in May and may meet again later in the year, and China’s top envoy even called this a “landmark year” for US ties.
India is getting hit from another side. Its links with Washington are already tricky, and this US policy is colliding with India’s energy needs.
Around 4 million barrels of Iranian oil have reached India, the first such imports in seven years, as buyers rushed to secure cargoes before a US grace period runs out this weekend. The Jaya, a very large crude carrier loaded with Iranian oil, is unloading at Paradip on India’s east coast this week.
Ship-tracking data from Kpler and Vortexa pointed to that movement. The Felicity is unloading at Sikka on the west coast. Port reports allegedly said both US-sanctioned tankers are expected to leave India by Friday.
