Donald Trump is said to have told allies he is willing to end the war in Iran without reopening the Strait of Hormuz.In the early hours of Tuesday morning, UK time, the Wall Street Journal reported the President was happy to leave the vital waterway largely closed.He would then launch a complex operation to reopen it at a later date, because doing so now would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks.Instead, the President is said to have decided that the US should achieve its main goals of destroying Iran’s navy and its missile stocks.
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It would then attempt to pressure Tehran diplomatically into letting the free flow of trade resume.But if that fails, European and Gulf allies would then face American pressure to take the lead on reopening the strait, officials told the WSJ.That appears to mark a shift from the President’s stance on Monday, which he outlined on his Truth Social platform.”If the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘open for business’, we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinisation plants), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’,” he said.The strait carries as much as a fifth of the world’s oil, while the UK consumes approximately 1.3 million barrels of oil per day.Most of those barrels are sourced from the North Sea or imported from non-Gulf regions like the US and Norway – but any disruption in the waterway immediately impacts prices around the world, including for Britons.The closure of the strait has pushed Brent crude futures up 59 per cent so far in March, its highest monthly gain ever.But in the hour after the Wall Street Journal’s report, they fell by $4.It also has a dramatic effect on gas – and Britain is more physically vulnerable to disruptions to that.Around six per cent of British liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports typically come from Qatar, and must pass through the Strait.Right now, the Royal Navy is preparing to retrofit a Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel with mine-sweeping drones to help get oil flowing again.The RFA Lyme Bay is set to join a multinational operation alongside allies including the US and France as part of security efforts in the strait.On Tuesday afternoon, Sir Keir Starmer will convene a Cobra meeting in which senior ministers will discuss the economic impact of the Iran war on Britain.The Prime Minister said on Monday that the meeting will look at “making sure that everything that we need to have in place, everything is monitored and audited properly”.He had told business chiefs in Downing Street on Monday to pitch in with a “joint effort” to tackle the impact of the war, saying the Government “can’t do it on its own”.One of those impacts looks to be on the air travel industry.Britain has sourced at least half of its jet fuel from the Middle East after turning away from Russian supplies following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.But the last known shipment of jet fuel to Britain from the Middle East is expected to arrive this week, the Financial Times reported.The shipment, on the Libyan-flagged Maetiga vessel, is set to arrive in the UK by Thursday from Saudi Arabia.There are no more Britain-bound cargoes from the region visible on the water, given the blockage of the strait.And in the waterway last night, Iran attacked a fully-loaded crude oil tanker in Dubai Port, setting it on fire and damaging its hull.Authorities in Dubai confirmed they were responding to a drone attack on a Kuwaiti oil tanker in Dubai waters and that maritime firefighting teams were working to bring the fire under control. No injuries were reported, and the safety of all 24 crew members has been secured, they said.
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