The four outcomes if Trump surrenders the Strait of Hormuz to Iran

In a post on his Truth Social network on Monday, the US president suggested that he would settle for destroying Iran’s civilian infrastructure if talks failed to open the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway on which 20 per cent of the world’s oil and gas depends.

On Tuesday, he suggested that Britain and other countries short of jet fuel should “go get your own oil”, hinting at shifting the issue onto others.

What would happen to the strait if Mr Trump decided to stop pursuing the issue?

Would Iran keep it closed? Levy tolls? Or simply allow transit to return to normal?

Or would an international or regional alliance need to send warships to finish what the Americans started?

Predicting the future is difficult because it is almost impossible to tell what is happening now.

The new normal

The first possibility is that Iran maintains its stranglehold.

Hormuz is currently subject to what Michelle Bockmann, a shipping and commodities analyst at Windward, the maritime intelligence firm, calls a “selective blockade”.

While the threat of attack by drone or missile keeps insurance premiums up and most vessels at bay, ships from Iran and friendly nations are allowed through.

Since March 15, the Iranians have established a semi-formal transit corridor controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

It loops around Larak island, near the Iranian coast, giving Iran very close scrutiny of vessels.

This arrangement resembled the protection racket Yemen’s Houthis formerly imposed in the Red Sea, said Ms Bockmann, “but on steroids: so the rules are deliberately unclear and ambiguous”.

Many transits are “semi-dark”, with ships turning off their transponders. And the nature of the deals between Iran, other governments, and shipping companies remains a mystery.

Daily traffic in both directions through the strait has fallen from about 138 ships a day to just half a dozen. But that may increase.

Ms Bockmann said: “We are seeing ships linked to China, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh – all those supplying agricultural products to or from Iran – being safely transited through this route.

“On Monday, two giant container ships belonging to Cosco, China’s giant state-owned shipping line, got through, which I think was really important, because it is showing that there is a ‘new normal’ now in place.”

Iran is shipping just as much crude oil as before the war, and, because prices have gone up, it is earning twice as much revenue.

The toll booth

The second option is for Iran not only to formalise the status quo, but to monetise it.

Indeed, Tehran has demanded recognition of its sovereignty over the strait as one of its peace conditions.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a member of the Iranian parliament’s security committee, said on March 22 that Iran was charging $2m (£1.5m) as a transit fee for the handful of vessels that had gone through the Larak route.

Industry specialists said there was no evidence that money had changed hands, however.

Several bulk carriers that have passed through belong to Greek shipping companies that trade in dollars and would be risking exposure to US sanctions if they paid Iran.

Nevertheless, Iran’s parliament on Tuesday approved a plan to collect tolls on vessels travelling through the strait.

State media reported that the plan would require agreement from other countries next to the strait, but did not say how much the toll would be.

The plan would need to be discussed with other Gulf countries, suggesting that Tehran hopes to secure regional backing by sharing the fee with its neighbours.

And the idea of a toll has filtered into discussions between Pakistan and regional powers about how to end the war.

Under their proposals, a multinational consortium of Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia would manage oil shipments through the strait and levy a fee.

This could be a serious money-spinner. Egypt makes between $700m and $800m a month from the Suez Canal. Mr Boroujerdi’s $2m figure, even if applied only to large crude oil tankers, could earn a similar figure for Tehran.

“Ka-ching! That’s what it means,” said Ms Bockmann. “The likely scenario is they impose their tolls, and they make money out of these transits if Trump walks away now.”

Charging for transit of an open waterway – even one that, like Hormuz, passes through Omani and Iranian sovereign territorial waters – would probably be illegal under the UN convention on the law of the sea.

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, said this week: “Not only is this illegal, it’s unacceptable. It’s dangerous for the world, and it’s important that the world have a plan to confront it.

“The United States is prepared to be a part of that plan. We don’t have to lead that plan, but we are happy to be a part of it.”

The UN humanitarian corridor

The plan Mr Rubio mentioned is a third possible outcome of the war.

Diplomatic sources told The Telegraph on Tuesday that Mr Rubio presented G7 foreign ministers with plans last week for a multinational consortium to take over the management of the Strait.

Mr Rubio stressed there would be “no fees, and free circulation” through the key shipping route, according to one interpretation of his intervention.

Britain was due to host a summit of naval chiefs from 30 countries to discuss how exactly that would work.

Sir Keir Starmer warned on Monday that reopening the strait would be “easier said than done”.

The Telegraph reported on Monday that Britain was leading the effort to put together an international taskforce to clear the shipping lane.

This would include a fleet of warships and, potentially, armed drone vessels that could protect commercial tankers.

The effort could mirror the US-led escort operation to protect neutral vessels from Iranian and Iraqi attacks during the so-called Tanker War of the late 1980s.

But the taskforce is not likely to be deployed until there is a ceasefire, and would almost certainly require Iranian buy-in.

It would probably have to be an arrangement similar to the UN-brokered 2022-23 Black Sea grain corridor that allowed the safe passage of food following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, said Ms Bockmann.

The UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) called for a “safe maritime corridor” two weeks ago as “a provisional and urgent measure”.

Arsenio Dominguez, the IMO secretary-general, said the “humanitarian corridor” would “evacuate ships in the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz”, where around 20,000 seafarers were stranded on 3,200 ships.

Status quo ante

There is a fourth, slim possibility: that the strait might return to normal.

Blockading Hormuz, according to Farzan Sabet, managing researcher at the Sanctions and Sustainable Peace Hub at the Geneva Graduate Institute, was Iran’s nuclear option: a desperate measure for desperate times.

Mr Sabet said: “So in the scenario [that] Trump just declares victory, moves on and does not do anything with the Iranians, the question is: does Iran keep firing drones at ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and trying to extract tolls?

“If they do, they force a US re-entry, and they force other actors, especially Gulf Co-operation Council countries, to take steps, because they consider that an unacceptable outcome.

“So they force a restart of the war, when part of the reason they’re doing the things they’re doing is precisely to end the war.”

This line of argument assumes that Iran is suffering much more than its government pretends.

It is true that the defiant rhetoric coming out of Tehran is at odds with the substantial economic, military, and physical damage wreaked by the Israeli-American campaign.

Perhaps Iran’s assertion of sovereignty over the strait, talk of charging fees, and demands for war reparations are merely the defiant public claims of a regime that knows that its best outcome is a return to the status quo ante.

Donald Trump is betting that a capitulation, in the form of a peace deal that opens the strait, will come sooner rather than later.

While the war – or the “scenario of prolonged disruption” as Ms Bockmann put it – continues “the IRGC is going to retain control”, she said.

She added: “I know that there are talks at the UN and the IMO to find some sort of humanitarian corridor so stranded seafarers on approved vessels can leave.

“But at the moment that’s all just talk. Under all scenarios, there is widespread shipping disruption that will last months, not weeks.”