How Trump Failed to Secure the Strait of Hormuz in His Iran Deal

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https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/12/us/politics/trump-strait-of-hormuz-iran-deal.html

https://archive.ph/FfgDY

How Trump Failed to Secure the Strait of Hormuz in His Iran Deal
President Trump signed an agreement that Iran said gave it control of the waterway — and global energy supplies. Now, Iran’s military is violently asserting authority.
By Edward Wong, Michael Crowley and Eric Schmitt
July 12, 2026

For two months, under a quiet arrangement with the U.S. Navy, commercial tankers turned off their transponders to avoid detection by Iran as they crossed the perilous Strait of Hormuz to carry oil and gas out to the world.

The military offered some air cover in case Iran attacked, as naval officers directed the vessels over the radio to hug Oman’s coast, opposite Iran’s shore. That enabled a steady increase in traffic through the strait from May to June, during a tentative cease-fire in the war.

But a framework deal that President Trump signed with Iran last month helped bring that effort to a fiery end because of its language giving Iran official power in the strait and its vagueness in important phrases.

Mr. Trump celebrated the agreement, reached on June 14, as the reopening of the strait. “Ships of the World, start your engines,” he wrote on social media. “Let the oil flow!”

But critics say it actually formalized a reality that Iranian officials have made clear throughout the war: They now control the strait.

Iran’s missile and drone attacks on commercial ships in the strait essentially shut it down soon after the United States and Israel started the war. Then weeks after the United States and Iran entered a tentative and informal cease-fire in early April, some tankers began taking a southern route through the strait, farther from Iran’s coast.

Now, by striking last week in that area, Iran is trying to force ships to travel through its territorial waters on the strait’s northern side, where Tehran can try to justify charging tolls or fees.

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