Seven ships crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. Before the war, the daily average was between 125 and 140. None of the seven were carrying oil for the global market.

President Donald Trump has told aides to prepare for an extended blockade of Iran’s ports, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing US officials. The directive came as peace proposals bounced between Washington, Tehran, and Islamabad without landing — and as Brent crude resumed its upward march, settling near $111 a barrel, up roughly 3 percent on the day.

The message is blunt: Washington has abandoned any near-term diplomatic off-ramp. The war is entering a sustained phase of economic strangulation, and neither side is blinking.

Deadlocked from the start

Iran’s latest proposal, delivered through mediator Pakistan over the weekend, would have set aside the nuclear question until after the shooting stops. Tehran offered to ease its chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for Washington lifting its retaliatory blockade of Iranian ports — then the two sides could negotiate the rest, including the longstanding dispute over uranium enrichment.

Trump was not interested. The president wants nuclear issues dealt with from the outset, a US official briefed on Monday’s White House meeting told reporters. He scrapped a planned visit by his special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to Pakistan over the weekend, pulling the plug on what had looked like the most promising diplomatic channel in weeks.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio acknowledged that Iran’s offer was “better than what we thought they were going to submit” but questioned whether the officials behind it still had the authority to make deals, following US-Israeli strikes that killed several senior Iranian political and military figures.

On Truth Social, Trump posted that Iran had informed the US it was in a “State of Collapse” and was trying to “figure out their leadership situation.” Iran’s army spokesperson, Amir Akraminia, told state television that Tehran does not consider the war over and has “no trust in America.”

“We have many cards that we have not yet used,” Akraminia said.

The leadership vacuum

The killing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the first day of the war — February 28 — removed the single figure who could arbitrate Iran’s competing power centers. His wounded son, Mojtaba, was elevated to supreme leader, but the balance of power has shifted decisively toward hardline commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to Iranian officials and analysts.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi shuttled in and out of Islamabad twice over the weekend carrying proposals, but without a single authoritative voice in Tehran able to guarantee follow-through, US officials appear unwilling to take the risk.

“Everything in the country is up in the air right now,” a small business owner in Tehran, identified as Farshad, told AFP. “The country is in complete economic collapse.”

Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said Tehran was using northern, eastern, and western trade corridors that bypass Gulf ports to “neutralise the blockade’s effects.” Ship-tracking data tells a different story: at least six tankers loaded with Iranian oil have been forced back to port by the US blockade in recent days.

The costs pile up

The World Bank has forecast that energy prices will surge 24 percent in 2026 — reaching their highest level since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — if the most acute disruptions ease by May. There is no sign they will.

The Strait of Hormuz is the chokepoint. Kpler ship-tracking data and satellite analysis from SynMax show traffic has collapsed from more than 125 daily transits to single digits. The US Treasury has warned that any firm making “toll” payments to Iran or the IRGC for passage through Hormuz will face sanctions — effectively criminalizing the workaround that some shipping companies had explored.

The United Arab Emirates, rattled by the disruption to its own trade and energy interests, announced it was quitting both OPEC and OPEC+, exposing the fractures the war has driven through Gulf state solidarity.

The US also imposed fresh sanctions on 35 entities and individuals tied to Iran’s shadow banking system on Tuesday, tightening the financial vise.

Allies grow restless

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had previously offered guarded support for the American campaign, said on Monday that “the Americans obviously have no strategy” and that the war was “at the very least ill-considered.” He accused Iran’s leadership of humiliating the United States.

Trump fired back on social media: Merz “doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The exchange laid bare a growing rift. Britain’s King Charles, addressing the US Congress on Tuesday, acknowledged “uncertainty and conflict in Europe and the Middle East” and stressed that the UK and US would remain “staunch allies united in defending democracy” — the kind of carefully worded reassurance that tends to signal the opposite.

Qatar, which has served as a mediator and was itself hit by Iranian strikes during the conflict, warned of a “frozen conflict” if no resolution is found.

“We do not want to see a frozen conflict that ends up being thawed every time there is a political reason,” Qatari foreign ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari told reporters.

No endgame in sight

Trump faces mounting domestic pressure. A Reuters/Ipsos poll put his approval rating at 34 percent — the lowest of his current term — with Americans increasingly souring on both the cost of living and the war itself. Midterm elections loom in November.

But the president shows no sign of changing course. His social media posts project confidence. His military is tightening the noose. His diplomats are staying home.

On the other side, Iran’s military says the war is not over, its foreign minister is visiting Russia, and the IRGC — the institution least inclined toward compromise — is ascendant in Tehran’s power structure.

The war that began with missiles is now a war of attrition. Blockade against blockade. Sanctions against sanctions. No ceasefire, no talks, and no visible path from either capital that leads to one.

Sources