Oil fears mount as US blockade of Iran’s Strait of Hormuz ports begins – Watch on TVNZ+<\/a><\/p>\nSupply chain analysts, meanwhile, stress that the restrictions could undermine the flow of oil, fertiliser, food and other goods to consumers already facing higher prices.<\/p>\n
Former Washington Post correspondent and Asia Pacific Editor Anna Fifield told Breakfast it was “hard to tell with Donald Trump how much is rhetoric and how much is real” as the US says it would blockade the Strait of Hormuz. (Source: Breakfast)<\/p>\n
How the US could enforce a blockade of Iranian ports<\/p>\n
Successfully enforcing the blockade will require a sustained commitment of US Navy ships and personnel, as well as clear guidance from the Trump administration and the Navy\u2019s legal department, experts say.<\/p>\n
American military officials have offered few details. <\/p>\n
The US has 16 warships in the Middle East, a defence official said. A second defence official said no warships are in the Persian Gulf \u2014 the body of water that forms most of Iran\u2019s coastline. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military operations.<\/p>\n
The second official pointed to a notice to mariners as a more accurate representation of the military\u2019s plans. <\/p>\n
It says access to Iranian ports is being restricted, but the ways these measures \u201cwill be applied in practice … are in development.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The biggest challenge will be the enormous volume of shipping traffic that usually transits the Strait of Hormuz, where nearly 20% of the world’s traded oil passes in peacetime. <\/p>\n
A considerable number of ships may be needed to enforce the restrictions, said Sidharth Kaushal, a naval power expert at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence and security think tank in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot depends on the early days of the blockade, how many vessels the Americans can seize, how much they can convince vessels attempting to slip through a cordon that they\u2019re likely to be seized,\u201d Kaushal said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in all likelihood, I\u2019d say it will prove difficult for the US to enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n
The strait\u2019s narrow confines at least will make the geographic area of concern a limited one, said Todd Huntley, director of Georgetown University Law Centre\u2019s National Security Law Program. <\/p>\n
Still, the amount of traffic that goes through \u201cis going to be a challenge,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Two-week ceasefire of hostilities has yet to return the flow of supply ships through the Strait of Hormuz.\u00a0 (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
The US may have to consider whether to allow humanitarian aid to reach Iranian ports, Huntley said, a decision that could determine the blockade\u2019s legality under international law. International rules also require that any nation enforcing a blockade do so impartially, after issuing an advisory to mariners.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow it is carried out will determine whether it is lawful or not,\u201d said Huntley, a retired Navy captain and judge advocate general.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t enact a blockade with the goal of starving the civilian population. Even the DOD law of war manual states that neutral vessels carrying relief supplies should be allowed to pass.\u201d<\/p>\n
Few merchant vessels are likely to try to evade a blockade, said Raul Pedrozo, professor of international law at the Naval War College and a retired Navy captain and JAG officer. They won\u2019t want to take their chances against the US Navy, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey see a warship, and they\u2019re going to heave to,\u201d Pedrozo said.<\/p>\n
World leaders are calling on Iran to ease its threats to vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n
Naval blockades aren’t a fix-all, but can be a tool<\/p>\n
Blockades historically haven\u2019t been enough on their own but have been used to exert pressure on other countries and their economies during conflicts, experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are always ways to economise, import, substitute, or just give up on certain things that you can no longer build for want of foreign inputs,” Kaushal said. “It can make things a lot harder in a lot of ways, but it doesn\u2019t necessarily achieve decisive outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n
A blockade alone can\u2019t sever Iran\u2019s economic ties with trading partners, including China and Russia, or cut off access to the Caspian Sea or Central Asia.<\/p>\n
The blockade also risks an Iranian response that could reignite the conflict, said Farzin Nadimi, who specialises in Iran and the Persian Gulf at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.<\/p>\n
Iran could deploy naval mines, small fast-attack boats and missiles against shipping in response, further disrupting the global economy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe US wants this to be a short and sweet operation. I don\u2019t think that it can be,\u201d Nadimi said.<\/p>\n
Trump said Iran has some \u201cfast attack ships\u201d remaining and warned Tehran that any of them coming \u201canywhere close\u201d to the US blockade would be destroyed by a \u201cquick and brutal\u201d strike. Iran responded with its own threats on ports in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.<\/p>\n
Oil prices could keep rising<\/p>\n
With fears of attacks, experts say most ships won’t want to take the risk. The waterway could effectively stay shut \u2014 and prices, particularly for oil and gasoline, could rise even more.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem with a two-side blockade is that you know it\u2019s going to take much longer for the strait to open up and for some kind of agreement to come about \u2014 and that\u2019s what’s going to send these prices further skyrocketing,\u201d said Vidya Mani, a visiting associate professor at Cornell University whose research focuses on supply chains.<\/p>\n
Analysts warn that the longer the waterway is closed, the worse prices could get. <\/p>\n
Oil has swung on markets’ quick reactions to announcements from Trump and others about the fate of the war, but they remain steep overall, with crude trading Monday above $100 a barrel, up from roughly $70 before the war.<\/p>\n
Households and businesses are paying the consequences \u2014 particularly in Asia, where countries rely more heavily on fuel imports from the Middle East. But oil is a globally traded commodity, and consumers worldwide are feeling a pinch in their wallets.<\/p>\n
Global supply chains also could see further disruptions<\/p>\n
The blockade also would hurt the transportation of food and fertiliser, said Patrick Penfield, professor of supply chain practice at Syracuse University. <\/p>\n
He said the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and others could especially see \u201cdramatic food price increases,\u201d as supplies will have to be flown in.<\/p>\n
Some 30% of the world’s fertiliser comes through the strait, potentially harming farmers and as a result worsening hunger worldwide.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you\u2019re talking about impacting the global harvest,\u201d Penfield said. Between these disruptions and oil shocks, he noted that such chaos and uncertainty \u201cbleeds out throughout the whole world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mani said chemicals to make basic supplies such as paint and metal such as aluminium, also pass through the region and would see additional disruptions. <\/p>\n
She pointed to price pressures even before the US and Israel launched their war against Iran \u2014 including new tariffs from Trump, supply chain problems from the Covid-19 pandemic and other geopolitical conflicts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to be prepared for constant higher prices, irrespective of how this blockade turns out,\u201d she said. \u201cEach crisis has a lingering effect on the next one.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A blockade of Iranian ports that US president Donald Trump said began yesterday could further disrupt oil prices,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379845,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[65,42,5107,43,64,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-379844","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-north-america","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379844","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379844"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379844\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379844"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379844"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379844"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}