According to Reuters, on July 7–8, 2026, attacks on commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz forced several oil and gas tankers to reverse course, raising shipping risks around one of the world’s most important energy chokepoints. The episode showed that Iran does not need to close the Strait outright to unsettle global markets. Uncertainty alone can raise costs across energy, shipping and insurance.
Iran’s most powerful strategic asset is not only its missile arsenal, drone capability or regional proxy network. Its real power lies in its geography and in its ability to influence a narrow passage that carries a major share of the world’s energy trade.
The Strait of Hormuz connects the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. The U.S. Energy Information Administration has warned that few practical alternative routes exist if the strait is closed. That is why Iran’s effort to assert sovereignty, collect navigation-related fees and impose costs on vessels moving through the waterway matters far beyond the Gulf.
The issue is not whether Iran can defeat the U.S. Navy in a conventional conflict. It cannot. The issue is whether Tehran can raise the cost, risk and uncertainty of global trade enough to alter the decisions of governments, insurers, shipowners and energy buyers.
Hormuz Has Become the Bottleneck of Global Energy
Around one-fifth of global oil and gas trade passes through the Strait of Hormuz under normal conditions. The International Energy Agency says about 80% of oil and oil products moving through the strait in 2025 were destined for Asia. The IEA also said more than 110 bcm of LNG passed through Hormuz in 2025, including most of Qatar’s LNG exports, with no practical alternative route for those volumes.
For South Korea, Japan, China and India, Hormuz is not a distant Middle Eastern security issue. It is a direct input into energy prices, industrial production, inflation and supply-chain stability.
Iran understands this. Its strategy is built on the gap between military weakness and geographic leverage. Tehran does not need to dominate the world’s oceans. It only needs to make one narrow passage more expensive, more dangerous or more politically contested.
The toll dispute follows the same logic. Iran presents its position as a matter of sovereignty and navigational services, while the U.S. and its partners view the strait as an international passage that must remain open. Reports this year said Iran’s parliament approved a plan to impose transit fees on commercial vessels, widening the legal and political dispute over who controls the cost of passage.
The legal question is not simple. The Strait of Hormuz runs through the territorial waters of Iran and Oman, but international maritime law also recognizes transit passage through straits used for international navigation. That ambiguity gives Tehran room to frame pressure on shipping as regulation, sovereignty and maritime security management.
Missiles Destroy Assets, but Hormuz Moves Markets
The market reads these moves differently. Every inspection delay, insurance surcharge, rerouting decision or tanker reversal becomes a price signal. Oil futures move, LNG buyers reassess supply, war-risk premiums rise and Asian importers prepare contingency plans.
Even when ships continue to move, uncertainty itself becomes a cost. That is where Iran’s real leverage lies. Missiles can destroy assets, but Hormuz can unsettle market confidence.
The Strait of Hormuz exposes a central feature of 21st-century geopolitics. Strategic power increasingly belongs not only to states with superior military hardware, but also to those that can influence infrastructure, chokepoints, energy routes and financial risk.
For Iran, Hormuz is the ultimate asymmetric instrument. It links local sovereignty claims to global market pressure and allows a sanctioned state to impose costs on much larger economies.
The lesson for the global economy is clear. Energy security is no longer only about production volume. It is also about passage, insurance, legal authority and control over the routes that move energy to market.
Iran’s greatest strategic asset is therefore not what it can launch. It is the Strait of Hormuz itself — the narrow maritime passage where Tehran can slow logistics, raise costs and amplify market anxiety at one of the world’s most vulnerable points of dependence.
