Strait of Hormuz Erupts Again: US Strikes Iran for Third Straight Night as Blockade Returns and Tankers Burn

The fragile truce between the United States and Iran has shattered once more, plunging the Strait of Hormuz — the artery through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and gas once flowed — back into open warfare, with both sides trading strikes for a third consecutive night and a renewed American naval blockade now in effect.

A Fifth-Hour Bombing Run

US Central Command confirmed early Wednesday that American forces had completed a five-hour mission striking military targets across Iran, hitting air-defense systems and coastal radar installations in an operation CENTCOM said was designed to “degrade” Tehran’s ability to threaten commercial shipping. Iranian state media reported explosions near the port cities of Bandar Abbas and Bushehr, both key nodes in Iran’s naval presence along the strait.

In a notable escalation, the US deployed an unmanned sea drone in combat for the first time, using it to strike an Iranian submarine docked in port. American officials describe the weapon as part of a broader campaign to systematically dismantle Iran’s remaining capacity to strike tankers and warships moving through the waterway.

Iran did not absorb the blow quietly. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said it “struck and disabled” two vessels it called “rogue supertankers” that had allegedly switched off their navigation systems and attempted to cross a “mined route” in defiance of Iranian warnings. Separately, the UAE Defense Ministry confirmed that two of its own tankers — the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah — were hit by Iranian cruise missiles while sailing through Omani territorial waters in the strait’s southern lane. One Indian crew member aboard the Mombasa was killed and at least eight others were injured; both ships suffered fire damage. Air-raid sirens sounded across Bahrain and Kuwait as Iran retaliated more broadly, and Iranian forces also struck a US base in Jordan.

How the Ceasefire Fell Apart — Again

This is not the first collapse. The wider war traces back to February 28, 2026, when US and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other senior officials, triggering a brutal air campaign that closed the strait to shipping almost overnight and, according to the International Maritime Organization, contributed to more than a dozen seafarer deaths and left roughly a thousand ships stranded in the Gulf.

A Pakistan-brokered ceasefire in April held, unevenly, for two months before Trump and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian signed a 14-point memorandum of understanding on June 17, formally pausing the conflict and lifting the dueling US and Iranian blockades. That truce was always fragile — the agreement guaranteed only 60 days of toll-free passage through the strait, leaving Iran’s long-term claim to “service fees” over the waterway unresolved.

The truce buckled for good on July 8, when Iran allegedly struck multiple commercial vessels in the strait. The US responded with strikes on Iranian territory; Iran, in turn, hit American-aligned bases across the Gulf. President Trump, speaking on the sidelines of a NATO summit, declared the ceasefire “over” and used sharply personal language to describe Iran’s leadership. What followed has been a near-nightly exchange: American strikes on Iranian military infrastructure, followed by Iranian retaliation against Gulf states hosting US forces — a cycle now in its third weekend.

Trump’s Toll U-Turn

The latest flashpoint has been almost as much about money as missiles. Days ago, President Trump floated charging a 20% levy on the value of cargo passing through the strait, declaring the US would become its “guardian angel” and should be “reimbursed” for protecting the route — a striking reversal, since Washington has long insisted that any tolling of an international waterway is illegal and that no country besides Iran itself has ever supported such a scheme.

By Monday, Trump had reversed course again. In a social media post, he said that after “highly productive conversations with Middle East leadership,” he would scrap the proposed fee in favor of trade and investment commitments from Gulf states flowing into the United States instead. Speaking in the Oval Office, he said Arab allies had phoned him directly to change his mind, calling the resulting arrangement “much better” than a toll.

Iran’s response has been characteristically defiant and, at moments, almost sardonic. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi acknowledged that safe passage should be compensated but insisted that Iran — not Washington — is the strait’s rightful “guardian,” declaring it would remain so “FOREVER.” He also appeared to haggle over the figure itself, writing that a 20% toll was “of course too much” and that Iran “will be fair.”

Markets Feel It Immediately

The economic fallout has been swift and sharp. Brent crude surged more than 9% in a single session — its biggest one-day jump in over six years — before climbing further past $85 a barrel. US gasoline prices have ticked up for the first time in weeks. Shipping data from Kpler shows crossings through the strait falling by more than half week-on-week, with tankers reverting to defensive routing or simply waiting out the danger in port. War-risk insurance premiums for vessels transiting the strait are also expected to climb sharply, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence, as owners and charterers grow warier of a route that, before the war, carried a quarter of the world’s seaborne oil trade.

Diplomacy on Life Support

Mediation efforts, meanwhile, are under severe strain. Oman — which jointly manages navigation through the strait with Iran and had floated a proposal to split the waterway into two separately controlled corridors — was itself struck by Iranian drones just a day after concluding talks on that very plan. Pakistan’s mediation track, active earlier in the year, has gone largely quiet since early July. The 60-day window for nuclear negotiations set out in the June memorandum is due to expire in mid-August, with little substantive progress reported so far.

A War With No Clean Ending

Back in Washington, the political toll is becoming harder to ignore. A satirical protest group unveiled a 10-foot gold trophy mocking Trump’s handling of the conflict, prompting a pointed rebuke from the White House, which said the artists “should refrain from weighing in on things they clearly know nothing about.” Yet the underlying numbers are difficult to spin away: gas prices are climbing, the war has repeatedly outlasted the president’s own predicted end dates, and a conflict he once claimed was “very complete” in March has now dragged into its fifth month with no durable ceasefire in sight.

For now, the Strait of Hormuz remains what it has been for most of 2026 — a narrow channel of water carrying an outsized share of the world’s energy and an even larger share of its geopolitical risk.

Strait of Hormuz Erupts Again: US Strikes Iran for...