On Sunday night at around 20:35 UTC President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. Navy would help ships in the Persian Gulf to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
Sal Mercogliano, who runs the What’s Going on With Shipping channel, says that around the same time two U.S. flagged commercial ships, both part of the U.S. transport reserve, were leaving the Gulf and have since reached the Arabian Sea. The shipping company Mersk confirmed that one of its ships has left the Persian Gulf.
Mercogliano explains that the U.S. most likely put Navy reserve officer onto those ships. They were equipped with secure communication equipment which allowed to coordinate the moves. On their way out of the Persian Gulf the two ship most likely hugged the Omani coast at the south side of the Gulf of Hormuz.
The U.S. additionally claimed that two of its destroyers had entered the Strait of Hormuz. Iran claims that it had warned off a U.S. military vessel by shooting at it. Neither of these claims has been confirmed.
The U.S. also claimed that it had destroyed 5 to 7 (sources vary) IRGC fast boats, likely by helicopter, implying that those were about to attack the ships the U.S. Navy protected. Iran refutes that and says that the U.S. attacked two small civilian cargo boats. (At any time there are hundreds of these in the Strait.)
The great “Project Freedom”, that Trump had announced, was supposed to allow for traffic to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. But it now seem to have been a one-off special operation to get only two of some 900 stuck vessels out of the Persian Gulf.
In parallel to this operation Iran tightened control over the oil flow leaving the Persian Gulf. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a pipeline which it allows it transport oil from its western oil fields to the Fujairah harbor at the eastern coast outside of the Strait of Hormuz. This has been used to export some 2 million barrels per day despite the blockade of Hormuz.
Yesterday Iran published a map which now includes Fujairah into the zone that Iran blockades. At the same time several Iranian missiles were fired at UAE installation. An Iranian drone hit Fujairah and left oil installations burning. Two UAE related ships were also attacked with one of them still burning.
UAE, the uppity sheikdom, has recently left the Arab led OPEC organization. It allied itself with Israel and the U.S. and has taken part in their attack on Iran. Attacking the UAE in the current situation will garner Iran sympathy points with other Arab Gulf nations.
But it also further tightens the oil supply situation for the rest of the world.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is currently visiting Iran’s biggest oil customer, China.
The visit comes just a few days after China has blocked U.S. sanctions from hitting its refineries which process Iranian products:
In a statement on Saturday, China’s Ministry of Commerce said the sanctions “improperly” restrict business between Chinese enterprises and third countries “in violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations”.
The Commerce Ministry said it had issued a “prohibition order” stipulating that the sanctions “shall not be recognized, enforced, or complied with,” calling the order a move to “safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests”.
“The Chinese government has consistently opposed unilateral sanctions that lack UN authorisation and basis in international law,” the ministry added.
This is not a small move but a statement that is sure to get Washington’s attention:
China is testing whether it can stop treating U.S. extraterritorial coercion as a routine condition of global commerce and start making compliance with that coercion legally dangerous inside China itself.
This is the opening shot by China to counter U.S. attempts to control the world’s energy supply.
The move comes 10 days before President Trump’s visit to China. It is a message that says the U.S. can no longer pressure China and be better aware that China and other, like Iran, can indeed hit back.