By wresting control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has turned the tables on US

By wresting control of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has turned the tables on US Submitted by Sean Mathews on Tue, 03/17/2026 - 20:08 If the US fails to push Iran out of Hormuz or washes its hands of the waterway, the repercussions will ripple across global trade and finance, experts say This frame grab, taken on 12 March 2026, shows smoke emerging from the Source Blessing cargo vessel, filmed from another vessel in the Gulf, north of Dubai (Wang Shang/Handout/UGC/AFP) Off Iran spent a decade building up a shadow fleet of tankers untouched by western finance and insurance to evade US sanctions. Now, those vessels are snaking through the Strait of Hormuz while their western-affiliated counterparts are locked out of the key chokepoint. Whereas the US used its heft as the underwriter of the world’s finance system to box out foes like Iran and Russia , the Islamic Republic is using missiles and drones to do the same.