Miranda Jeyaretnam
As the hours count down to President Donald Trump’s deadline for Iran to open the Strait of Hormuz or face U.S. bombs on its civil infrastructure, the first of seven stranded Malaysian ships safely passed through the narrow waterway that has effectively been closed to most of the world. “We had said that the Islamic Republic of Iran does not forget his friends,” the Iranian Embassy in Malaysia said in a post on X on Monday, announcing the ship’s passage.
Days after the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran in late February, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said the strait was “closed” to the U.S., Israel, and countries that supported their attacks. The effective closure of the strait has led to major disruptions to the world’s energy flows, sending oil prices above $100 per barrel and threatening to cripple many economies that rely on energy from the Middle East. Prior to the start of the war, around 135 vessels transited through the Strait of Hormuz per day. That number fell dramatically to a total 116 crossings between March 1 and March 25, according to the Financial Times.
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