Iran vows to keep Strait of Hormuz closed until Trump and Netanyahu are out of power

Iran has made its position unmistakably clear: the Strait of Hormuz stays closed until the political landscape in Washington and Jerusalem looks fundamentally different. Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei’s government is conditioning the reopening of the world’s most critical oil transit corridor on the removal of President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu from power, alongside a laundry list of demands that makes a quick resolution look somewhere between unlikely and impossible. The strait, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that funnels roughly one-fifth of global oil and gas shipments, has been under effective Iranian control since US-Israeli strikes began on February 28, 2026. What was once a passageway handling approximately 130 vessel transits per day has been reduced to single-digit daily movements as of September 2026. A chokepoint with global consequences Brent crude has responded exactly as you’d expect. Prices have spiked near or above $100 per barrel, with brief surges touching around $110 per barrel during the most acute phases of the standoff. That represents a dramatic jump from the sub-$80 levels that prevailed before the conflict erupted. Iran’s Supreme Nationa...