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Speaking at a campaign event in Garden City, Long Island on August 14, President Trump told an audience of law enforcement officers that "after we finish defeating Iran, which is being very badly defeated, pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States." He added, "Essentially, that's what it is. We have the blockade. No ships get through unless we want them to." Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi responded on X within hours. Th

An oil spill off the coast of Oman has spread across somewhere between 390 and 2,000 square kilometers, depending on whose satellite analysis you accept, and reached roughly 40 kilometers of mainland coastline near Ras Madrakah on August 12. The source is a half-sunk tanker called the Caroline Bezengi, aground in the Arabian Sea, leaking crude for approximately six weeks with no effective containment. The vessel is 81,085 gross tons. It has held no classification from an IACS

There are moments in maritime history that redefine how the industry operates, sometimes just for a season, sometimes for years. We are living through one of them right now. As of today, March 26, 2026, the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow passage between Iran and Oman through which roughly 20 percent of the world's seaborne oil and global LNG once flowed freely, is effectively closed to commercial shipping. This post is an attempt to lay out what happened, where things stand, an