“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.
Read More: Why Iran Thinks It’s Winning
“What about us charging tolls? I’d rather do that than let them have them. Why shouldn’t we? We’re the winner. We won,” Trump told reporters on Monday. The President said he would also like to seize Iranian oil, “because it’s there for the taking. There’s not a thing they can do about it.”
The outlook appears grim. Both Iran and the U.S. have rejected each other’s cease-fire proposals. Iranian officials have insisted that any cease-fire has to result in a permanent cessation of attacks from the U.S. and Israel; without that guarantee, Iran is unwilling to fully reopen the strait or give up its enriched Uranium stockpile, which were reportedly terms in the 15-point proposal from the U.S. that Iran rejected. But any trust Iran had in the U.S. has been broken before: the two countries were in the middle of renewed negotiations towards a nuclear agreement—previously disrupted by Israeli and U.S. attacks last June—when Trump launched the Feb. 28 strikes on Iran. And Iran has seen Israel carry out attacks against Lebanon and Gaza even after previous cease-fires in those conflicts were reached, Iranian officials said.
Future control
Andrea Ghiselli, a lecturer in international politics at the University of Exeter and head of research at the ChinaMed Project, tells TIME that the deals Iran is making with other countries to allow for passage through the strait “undermine U.S. leverage” in the face of Trump’s threats. Iran is demonstrating its ability to manage the strait, Ghiselli adds, without U.S. involvement.
In the short term, the deals allow Iran to place pressure on countries not to become militarily involved alongside the U.S. and Israel, while at the same time easing pressure on Iran by acting as a potential source of revenue and allowing for Iranian oil sales to continue, Ghiselli says.
Countries around the world face a difficult balancing act, says Amit Ranjan, a research fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore. Strike a deal with Iran to let their vessels through, which for many countries is a matter of survival, but risk upsetting Trump, who has shown himself willing to upend even longstanding relationships.
Analysts say that Iran’s wartime moves to restrict access through the strait could create an opportunity for the nation to reenter the global economy and international diplomacy after years of isolation imposed by heavy global sanctions. Iran is laying the “foundation” for “strengthening its control over the strait in the long term,” says Ghiselli.
Governments may fear that an Iran-controlled shipping route could set a precedent for other countries in similar geographic positions to do the same, leading to broader risks to free maritime trade, Ghiselli says. A coalition of more than 40 governments has formed to try to pressure Iran to reopen the strait. On Tuesday morning, the U.N. Security Council is also expected to vote on a draft resolution encouraging states to coordinate defensive efforts to secure the strait and demand Iran cease attacks on merchant vessels transiting the waterway. Gulf Cooperation Council countries and Jordan have advocated for using force if necessary to ensure maritime security in the region. But China, which was among the first countries to strike a deal with Iran allowing its ships to pass through the strait, Russia, and France opposed authorizing the use of force as part of the resolution.
“The perceived solution [for Iran] is permanent control of the strait—providing services, collecting fees, and, most importantly, securing not just the Persian Gulf but a valuable lever over the global economy,” Mohammad Eslami, a research fellow at the University of Tehran, and Zeynab Malakouti, a senior fellow at the Global Peace Institute, wrote in the Quincy Institute’s Responsible Statecraft last week. “After the war, Iran will likely try to re-enter the international economy by striking a quiet but crucial deal with nearly every country: secure passage through the Strait of Hormuz in exchange for recognition of the new Iranian framework and payment.”
Iran could also try to revive a version of the Hormuz Peace Endeavor (HOPE), which it had proposed in 2019, according to Eslami and Malakouti. The framework sought to promote regional security and cooperation among Persian Gulf states without external military involvement.
“The dilemma of the Strait of Hormuz has no military solution,” wrote Eslami and Malakouti. “Trump has miscalculated again. He is trying to win the battle; Iran is focused on winning the war.”
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