THE TELEGRAPH: US president’s success in reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not as watertight as he suggests
It is, in theory, a victory for real-estate geopolitics.
Donald Trump has shown that if you rip up the rule book, shout loudly enough and make your demands as maximalist as possible, you can get your way. Diplomacy, it seems, is not so different from closing a New York property deal.
The US president demanded that Iran “open the f----n’ strait” or face the extermination of “a whole civilisation” and, behold, Iran agreed to open the Strait of Hormuz.
But as any real estate agent knows, the devil – even after a war of this magnitude – is in the detail. A closer inspection suggests Mr Trump’s triumph may not be quite as unalloyed as he claims.
It all comes down to semantics and how you define the word “open” in the ceasefire deal brokered by Pakistan.
As far as Washington is concerned, Iran has surrendered its main source of leverage, forced by the US’s overwhelming firepower into a capitulation that sceptics had once scoffed was impossible.
Oil tankers and other maritime traffic will once again pass unimpeded through the Gulf. Energy prices will tumble and the US economy will march onwards and upwards.
Iran begs to differ.
As he accepted the deal, Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, said: “For a period of two weeks, safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will be possible via co-ordination with Iran’s armed forces and with due consideration of technical limitations.”
In other words, Iran may have agreed to allow shipping through the chokepoint, but it insists it is doing so on its own terms and has not relinquished its claim to control it. » | Adrian Blomfield | Senior Foreign Correspondent in Muscat | Wednesday, April 8, 2026
