RE: The USA To Block The Strait of Hormuz12 Apr 2026 16:50
Trump blockade will only impact small number of vessels
published at 16:05
16:05
Rachel Clun
Business reporter
US President Donald Trump’s threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz will only affect a small handful of vessels that are still navigating the waterway, shipping expert Lars Jensen says.
“If this is actually done by the Americans, it will halt a very tiny trickle of vessels. In the greater scheme of things, it doesn't really change anything,” he says.
Jensen, chief executive of Vespucci Maritime, says Trump's threat of preventing safe passage for any ships paying tolls to Iran would also have little impact, as any company doing so would already face sanctions for paying the regime.
“First of all, there's very few ships that pass. There's even fewer of those that pay, and those that pay will already be subject to American sanctions,” he says.
Most shipping companies will continue to wait and see if there is a tentative peace agreement and whether that might hold, Jensen says, and if that occurs, a slow ramping up of shipping may resume.