On April 13, 2026, President Donald Trump announced that he would impose a blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. U.S. Central Command later clarified that it would impose a blockade on all Iranian ports and coastal areas, including in the Sea of Oman. If the administration expects it to be a game-changer during the negotiations, it is yet another signal of how Americans misunderstand the Islamic Republic.
The blockade will not begin for several days. The George H.W. Bush Carrier Strike Group is in the Mediterranean and the blockade cannot fully begin until the carrier group is closer to the region, perhaps one week into the two-week ceasefire. Even then, it will take time for the shortages to reverberate through Iran. Unless the ceasefire is extended, the blockade will not be a diplomatic game-changer.
Unless the ceasefire is extended, the blockade will not be a diplomatic game-changer.
It is also unclear how long the United States can enforce the blockade. The U.S. Navy is already overcommitted and stretched thin. The U.S. blockade against Venezuela was the reason that the president could not immediately enforce his red line against Iran’s shooting protesters back in January 2026. The U.S. Navy’s long-term commitments, especially in the Indo-Pacific, make it unlikely that the United States can maintain the blockade for long.
Further undermining the strategy is a lack of clarity over the purpose of the blockade. It has two plausible explanations: denying oil exports to China to relay the pressure on Iran to reach a deal, or halting Iran’s economic production.
Experts exaggerate Iran’s reliance on China. Iran has had commercial ties with China, but Tehran has always made economy a secondary concern to security, evident by its tolerance of sanctions. The late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s emphasis on the “resistance economy,” his direction that the country produce everything at home, made sense only in the context of his belief that economy should serve foreign policy, rather than vice versa.
Iran’s security partnership with China is recent. At the turn of the century, Iran significantly reduced military imports, including from China, and turned to domestic production. Military imports from China halted in 2015, and Iran limited its imports to dual-use components. Iran just began importing components of its missile program from China last year. For the first time, Iran is trying to import air defense from China. As things stand, China’s leverage over Iran is more prospective than current.
The regime has lost a lot of military equipment, but it has substituted it with morale.
Domestically, Iran feels triumphant. According to people in Iran, the regime’s foot soldiers believe that Iran has won the war by asserting its control over the Strait of Hormuz and surviving an existential crisis. The regime has lost a lot of military equipment, but it has substituted it with morale. According to Fars News, an affiliate outlet of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s strategy depended on something “that cannot be made in any factory,” which is will. The U.S. desperation to stabilize the global economy and the ceasefire increased Iran’s stockpile of will.
To coerce an adversary, it is necessary to threaten what that enemy cares about. The Islamic Republic does not care about the economy, making a blockade unlikely to succeed. There are three things that the average regime leader cares about: going to heaven, his family, and the regime’s survival. The United States has yet to control afterlife; unlike the Islamic Republic, the United States does not kill innocent family members. Therefore, the regime’s survival is all that remains.
If the United States is seeking a leverage to use against the regime in diplomacy, it must threaten the core of the regime, including the lives of its leadership. A blockade is a useful tool to this end, but its effects will be slow to actualize; it requires patience and complementary tools. But Trump should be under no delusion: The blockade itself will not be enough.
