America's "blockade" is far from total

America's blockade has caused prices to soar

From March 15 to April 14, Iran exported 55.22 million barrels of oil.

The price per barrel of Iranian oil – across its three major variants, known as Iranian light, Iranian heavy and Forozan blend – has not fallen below $90 per barrel over the past month.

On many days, the price surpassed $100 a barrel.

Even at the conservative estimate of $90 a barrel, Iran has earned at least $4.97bn over the past month from its ongoing oil exports.

By contrast, in early February before the war started, Iran was earning about $115m a day from its crude oil exports, or $3.45bn in a month.

Simply put, Iran has earned 40 percent more from oil exports in the past month than it did before the war.

Tyrant Trump's ignorance has resulted in a financial windfall for the Islamic Republic, therefore.
 

Oil, LPG tankers reaching Mumbai despite US blockade​


The US vowed to choke the Strait of Hormuz after Iran refused to bend, but the results so far have exposed the limits of naval power in one of the world's busiest maritime corridors.

The US Navy, deployed east of the Strait in the Gulf of Oman to monitor and restrict traffic entering or leaving the passage, has not been able to make the blockade airtight.

Dozens of tankers have reportedly continued to slip through.

There is also a route many observers have pointed to that allows ships to sail directly from Iran's Kharg Island to Mumbai.

Over 30 tankers have reportedly passed through the Strait of Hormuz since the US's blockade began on April 13.

"At least 34 tankers with links to Iran have bypassed the US blockade since it began," reported The Financial Times in an article in which it tracked dozens of ships coming out and going into the Persian Gulf.

Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at the financial research and market analysis firm Bianco Research, explained the path vessels are following with a map.

If a tanker is loaded at Kharg Island, where over 90% of Iran's crude oil exports originate, it can then sail onwards through the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, hugging the territorial waters of Iran, and entering Pakistani waters before they sail past the blockade.

The US Navy cannot simply stop vessels inside another country's territorial waters. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), every coastal nation controls 12 nautical miles (22 km) of territorial waters. Foreign merchant ships enjoy the right of "innocent passage" through these waters. This means as long as the vessel is simply transiting, the coastal country offers safe passage.

A retired senior Indian Navy officer offered a technical perspective on how Indian vessels might be avoiding the US blockade. "Once a ship's passage through the Strait is cleared, our Navy is likely to meet it at a pre-arranged rendezvous point , safely away from the US operational zone. From the Gulf of Oman, they can head directly to India's ports, Mumbai, or Kochi, or any other port in India," he said.
 
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said:

Oil, LPG tankers reaching Mumbai despite US blockade​


The US vowed to choke the Strait of Hormuz after Iran refused to bend, but the results so far have exposed the limits of naval power in one of the world's busiest maritime corridors.

The US Navy, deployed east of the Strait in the Gulf of Oman to monitor and restrict traffic entering or leaving the passage, has not been able to make the blockade airtight.

Dozens of tankers have reportedly continued to slip through.

There is also a route many observers have pointed to that allows ships to sail directly from Iran's Kharg Island to Mumbai.

Over 30 tankers have reportedly passed through the Strait of Hormuz since the US's blockade began on April 13.

"At least 34 tankers with links to Iran have bypassed the US blockade since it began," reported The Financial Times in an article in which it tracked dozens of ships coming out and going into the Persian Gulf.

Jim Bianco, president and macro strategist at the financial research and market analysis firm Bianco Research, explained the path vessels are following with a map.

If a tanker is loaded at Kharg Island, where over 90% of Iran's crude oil exports originate, it can then sail onwards through the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, hugging the territorial waters of Iran, and entering Pakistani waters before they sail past the blockade.

The US Navy cannot simply stop vessels inside another country's territorial waters. Under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), every coastal nation controls 12 nautical miles (22 km) of territorial waters. Foreign merchant ships enjoy the right of "innocent passage" through these waters. This means as long as the vessel is simply transiting, the coastal country offers safe passage.

A retired senior Indian Navy officer offered a technical perspective on how Indian vessels might be avoiding the US blockade. "Once a ship's passage through the Strait is cleared, our Navy is likely to meet it at a pre-arranged rendezvous point , safely away from the US operational zone. From the Gulf of Oman, they can head directly to India's ports, Mumbai, or Kochi, or any other port in India," he said.
Click to expand...

to offer a contrast: your retardation IS total.
 
Irans fate is sealed. They are doomed, nothing can stop what is coming.

" Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured." Ezekiel 39:4
 
Stone said:
Irans fate is sealed. They are doomed, nothing can stop what is coming.

" Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured." Ezekiel 39:4
Click to expand...

Bluster.
 
We are led by a man who rules by his gut. That is no way to survive in the complicated world we live in. Trump does not even honor his own deals. He changes tariffs at whim.Anyone can make a deal with Trump since he does not honor deals, so why should they? Make a deal. It does not matter. Trump is not a dealmaker. He is a deal destroyer. He destroys the concept of deal-making.
Nothing Trump says about Iran can be taken at face value.
He is going to open the straight. Then he is closing it. He is against foreign wars, yet attacks countries when he feels like. Will we survive this idiot?
 
Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told state media on Tuesday, that Iran had prepared for maritime blockade scenarios as early as the U.S. 2024 presidential election and made necessary arrangements.

She added Tehran was using northern, eastern and western trade corridors that did not rely ⁠on Gulf ports to neutralize the US blockade's effects.

Reza Rostami of the Iran Chamber of Commerce told Shargh newspaper that private sector operators were using four Caspian Sea ports, and rail links via Turkey and Turkmenistan. Iran is also in talks with Oman and Pakistan to channel goods through their ports, he added.
 

11 more vessels pass through Strait of Hormuz today​


Eleven commercial vessels traversed the Strait of Hormuz during the 24-hour period ending at 1200 GMT Tuesday.

Nine vessels moved through the strait from the Arabian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, while two others traveled from east to west.

Vessels passed through the strait from west to east were the Panama-flagged bulk carrier New Pioneer, departing from Argentina and the Comoros-flagged landing craft Samia 1, hovering between Iranian ports, according to AIS data.

Movements in the opposite direction included the Comoros-flagged bulk carrier Gulf King, from Iran to Oman; Iran-flagged landing craft Hakim Khamir, from Iran to the United Arab Emirates; Bolivia-flagged cargo ship Midas 7, departing from Iran; Panama flagged Starway, from the UAE to Oman; Iran-flagged Bari 25422, departing from the UAE; Comoros-flagged landing craft Al Batha, from Oman to the UAE; Antigua and Barbuda-flagged container ship Paya Lebar, from the UAE to India; Panama-flagged crude oil tanker Idemitsu Maru, departing from Saudi Arabia; and Panama-flagged general cargo ship Roya, from Iraq to the UAE.

US President Donald Trump claimed Tuesday that Iran is in a “state of collapse” and that Tehran asked Washington to reopen the Strait of Hormuz “as soon as possible.”
 
Trump and his team appear to calculate — incorrectly, according to many experts — that the tightening U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports will soon compel regime leaders to surrender to U.S. demands.

Trump has kept the U.S. naval blockade in place despite the "ceasefire", which Trump has extended several times since its expiration last Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth briefed reporters Friday that the U.S. quarantine would remain in place until Iran accepts U.S. terms. Leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), calling the blockade a ceasefire violation and an act of war, have threatened to challenge the blockade by all means at their disposal.

The U.S. blockade is damaging Iran economically, but its strategic effect appears to be limited. Many experts assert that Iran has a high tolerance for hardship, and they are implacably opposed to bending under Trump’s pressure. Iran's leaders, who control Iranian strategy, are all veterans of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, during which Iraqi attacks reduced Iran’s oil exports to nearly zero at times.

They are partially mitigating the economic effects of the U.S. blockade. Prior to its imposition, Iran had put nearly 170 million barrels of crude oil afloat on National Iranian Tankers Company (NITC) and dark-fleet tankers, awaiting delivery primarily to China.

According to Muyu Xu, of the commodities analysis firm Kpler, the vast bulk of the Iranian oil afloat is positioned “around the Malacca Strait, the South China Sea, and areas closer to China.” Deliveries of that oil will provide Tehran with its pre-war oil revenue levels at least until August, according to experts.

On Thursday, Iran’s deputy Majles speaker Hamidreza Haji-Babaei said Tehran’s central bank had received the first revenues from tolls imposed since the start of the war on commercial traffic through the Strait.

No signs have appeared, to date, that Tehran is willing to sign an agreement that Trump can advertise as justifying the economic and other consequences of launching Operation Epic Fury.
 

Fox News:​

​

Trump squeezes Iran with maximum pressure — it hasn’t forced a breakthrough​


Analysts say Iran has proven more capable of absorbing pressure than Washington has been able to convert it into gains.​


After two months of conflict, neither a deadly bombing campaign nor a blockade on Iranian exports has forced Tehran to make the concessions the Trump administration is seeking.

The campaign has intensified in recent weeks, targeting Iran’s oil exports and financial networks while a naval blockade has disrupted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical artery for global energy flows..

While the U.S. has killed Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and dozens of top military and political figures, the regime itself remains intact. His son, Mojtaba Khamenei, was selected to succeed him, and leadership remains firmly hardline.

Aaron David Miller, a State Department Middle East negotiator and fellow at the Carnegie Endowment, said the administration may have misjudged the type of negotiating partner it would face.

"Trump was looking for an Iranian Delcy Rodriguez," he told Fox News. "More likely, he's going to end up with an Iranian Kim Jong Un."

He expressed doubt that any decisive victory was possible. "And we do not have the capacity to remove the regime."

"It’s almost unimaginable that this administration and the Iranian leadership are willing to make the kinds of concessions that would allow this administration to walk away with a win," Miller said.

"Iranians are willing to give concessions, but Trump is looking for capitulation," said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft think tank. "And you can't get a country to capitulate unless you have defeated them."

Instead of folding under pressure, Iran largely has responded by adapting.

Despite the blockade, Iran has continued to move oil through workaround methods, including sanctioned vessels, smaller ports and alternative routing strategies, even as overall exports have come under strain.

Those efforts have expanded in recent weeks. Reports indicate Iran is exploring overland shipments, including potential rail exports to China, while vessels have increasingly rerouted through Iranian territorial waters or controlled shipping corridors to bypass restrictions.

"The United States successfully closes off one avenue for them, and slowly, but surely, they are finding workarounds," Parsi said.

Iran has not been fully cut off. The country has continued to generate billions in oil revenue in recent months, underscoring both the scale of the pressure and its limits.

While a sustained drop in oil revenue would strain the government’s official budget and force cuts to public spending, the country’s most powerful institution, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, operates through its own economic networks, including smuggling routes and cross-border trade.

That allows the government to continue functioning even under heavy sanctions.
 

Trump likes a naval blockade. But Iran presents major differences from Venezuela and Cuba​


Donald Trump has turned to naval blockades to pressure the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and now Iran to meet his demands, but his preferred tactic is confronting a very different reality in the Middle East than in the Caribbean.

Unlike Cuba or Venezuela, Iran choked off a crucial trade route for energy shipments, meaning the longer the standoff persists, the more the global economy will suffer.

Tehran also poses a greater military threat than those two adversaries in America's own hemisphere and requires a sustained military presence far from U.S. shores.

Iran's leverage over the Strait of Hormuz gives it power during a shaky ceasefire because the widening economic risks, especially higher U.S. gas prices in an election year, could force the Republican president to end the blockade on Iran's ports and coastline, experts say.

"It's really a question now of which country, the U.S. or Iran, has a greater pain tolerance," said Max Boot, a military historian and senior fellow for national security studies at the Council on Foreign Relations.

The effectiveness of Trump's use of the world's most powerful navy to block trade is very much up for debate.

But the situation in Iran is not exactly analogous to what is playing out with the U.S. operations in Venezuela and Cuba.

Trump's success in Venezuela likely had more to do with the U.S. military raid that captured leader Nicolás Maduro than American warships seizing sanctioned oil tankers to enforce U.S. control over the South American country.

While the blockade against Iran has delivered a severe blow to its economy, the country has still been able to move its sanctioned oil, ship tracking companies say.
 

52 Iranian Vessels Break Siege in Just 72 Hours​



Satellite data monitoring shows that within a 72-hour period, 52 vessels have crossed the U.S. blockade line.



Satellite monitoring data indicate that during the 72 hours leading up to 10:00 PM last night, 52 vessels crossed the U.S. blockade line. These vessels included 31 tankers and 21 cargo ships. Additionally, 30 vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz, which included 6 tankers and 5 Iranian cargo ships.



Since April 13, the United States has announced it was placing Iran under a naval blockade, and Trump has repeatedly described this blockade as strong and firm.



However, only ten days after that date, the oil cargo tracking firm Vortexa announced that at least 34 tankers associated with Iran broke the blockade, confirming that nearly 11 million barrels of Iranian oil passed through the U.S. blockade.



Two days ago, another maritime cargo tracking firm, TankerTrackers, reported the departure of an additional 4 million barrels of Iranian oil from the U.S. naval blockade line. Now, new statistics report the departure of 52 vessels in just 72 hours.



Following this U.S. action and the violation of the ceasefire, Iran also announced that the restrictions applied to the Strait of Hormuz would become more severe, and satellite images indicate near-zero traffic in this vital waterway.



In this regard, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) patrols are strictly monitoring the movement of ships in this strait, such that two different ships associated with the U.S. and the Israeli regime have been seized and transferred to Iranian shores so far.



Consequently, this vital waterway is open only to Iranian and Iran-affiliated ships, and if a ship passes through the strait, it is only with the permission of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy; a point mentioned in all international statistics and reports.



In this context, the oil cargo tracking firm MarineTraffic reported an hour ago the passage of a giant tanker belonging to the Japanese refiner “Idemitsu” through the Strait of Hormuz. According to the firm’s data, this ship had departed from the Ras Tanura anchorage on April 17 and is carrying 2 million barrels of crude oil.



Yui Torikata, a senior market analyst at Kpler, says that Japanese shipowners are very cautious regarding security risks, and this passage shows they have become somewhat certain of safe movement.



Former US ally Japan relies on West Asia for 95% of its energy imports, and following the war against Iran, the country has faced such an energy crisis that its national network covered the entry of the first post-war tanker into Tokyo Bay live.
 
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