Trump’s Hormuz blockade earns brickbats on fears it will prompt Red Sea redux

(Originally published Apr. 14 in “What in the World“) Friends and foes alike are skeptical Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will work, and none more than its biggest supposed beneficiary, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi crude makes up the biggest proportion of oil that normally flows out of Gulf through the vital passage. Since Iran closed the Strait, however, the Saudis have been diverting as much oil as possible across the peninsula to their Red Sea port of Yanbu. Exports from Yanbu have soared to as high as 4.5 million barrels a day, from a pre-war average of less than 1 million barrels a day.

While the east-west pipeline carrying that crude still has a bit of capacity for more, Yanbu port is maxed out, and a backlog of up to 30 crude tankers has reportedly been waiting offshore to load.

The concern in Riyadh is that Iran’s proxies in Yemen, the Houthi rebels, will reprise Tehran’s closure of Hormuz by closing the even narrower Bab al-Mandab Strait. The Houthis have been suspiciously quiet so far in the conflict, launching only one missile strike against Israel. That has led to speculation the Houthis are licking their wounds after last year’s joint strikes against them by the U.S. and Israel. Others fear the Houthis have merely been keeping their powder dry.

If the reported Saudi request is true, we can deduce that it also means the U.S. blockade isn’t going to re-open the Strait of Hormuz to non-Iranian oil shipments by de-mining it. And given earlier reports that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has joined Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in lobbying Trump to escalate the war to achieve regime change in Iran, we can also assume Riyadh’s opposition to the blockade doesn’t represent a desire to placate Iran and return to the status quo antebellum.

While the U.S. has said it won’t block non-Iranian vessels from traversing the Strait of Hormuz, shipping companies say they remain reluctant to chance the passage. The U.S. hasn’t said it will protect ships from Iranian attack, and details still haven’t emerged on whether the blockade will be accompanied by minesweeping operations.

What Trump fails to realize, according to his own former Iran negotiator Nate Swanson at the Atlantic Council, is that:

“Iran was never going to capitulate because of military pressure and probably won’t succumb to economic coercion either. If anything, Iran likely believes with the strait closed, time is on its side because it can withstand economic pressure better than the rest of the world can. Iran, after all, has muddled through years of sanctions.”