Bolton: 'Makes Sense' For Trump to Blockade Strait of Hormuz

President Donald Trump said the US would blockade the Strait of Hormuz "effective immediately" following the failed peace talks with Iran in Islamabad. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton joins Christina Ruffini and Tim Stenovec on Bloomberg This Weekend to discuss.  Iran said it would target all ports in and close to the Persian Gulf if its own shipping hubs are threatened, heightening the standoff over the Strait of Hormuz after the US announced plans for a blockade of Tehran-linked vessels.

The security of ports in the region is “either for everyone or for no one,” Iran’s armed forces said in a statement on Monday, according to the state-run IRIB News. The US threat to block the strait would be “an act of piracy,” it said, reiterating plans to permanently control the critical waterway even after the war.

The comments add to a game of brinkmanship over the Hormuz strait, a major transit point for energy flows that accounts for about a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas. They signal Iran is ready to restart attacks on ports in Arab Gulf states — if the US follows through on a pledge to block all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian hubs from 10 a.m. New York time on Monday.

Such a move would also lead to more tension between the US and China, which buys almost all of Iran’s oil. The strait’s effective shuttering since the start of the war has triggered a surge in oil and gas prices and become the focal point of the more than six-week conflict, which shows no sign of an imminent resolution. The US-Israeli alliance and Iran announced a two-week ceasefire on April 7, though talks at the weekend about a longer-term deal failed to yield results.

US President Donald Trump announced the blockade in response to the failure of those negotiations in Pakistan, threatening to resume US military attacks in the event of Iranian resistance. “Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!” he said.

It’s not clear where the blockade would be or how many ships would be deployed to enforce it.

Read More: How Would Trump’s Blockade of the Strait of Hormuz Work?

The move is fraught with risk, given the potential to exacerbate a global energy supply shock and send prices spiralling even higher. Brent crude surged after Trump’s announcement, trading almost 7% higher at $102 a barrel on Monday. European gas futures spiked as much as 18%.

“A blockade by itself is a game of chicken that I think Iran eventually wins, because they can suffer for a while,” Nouriel Roubini, the chief executive of Roubini Macro Associates, said at the Greenwich Economic Forum in Hong Kong Monday. “We’ll be in a worse world because we’ll still have higher oil prices, stock markets falling, bond yields higher.”

Around the world, there’s now a desperate effort among refiners and traders to secure immediately available crude cargoes as physical supplies tighten.

“Enjoy the current pump figures. With the so-called ‘blockade’, Soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4–$5 gas,” Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf posted on X, referring to already inflated US gasoline prices.

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