Hormuz Is Burning: Tankers Hit, a Dead Sailor, and Trump Announces a Blockade With a 20% Tax

The situation in the Gulf has slipped out of control. Iranian missiles hit two tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, near the coast of Oman - one crew member killed, eight wounded, four of them seriously. The dead man was an Indian national, and among the wounded are six Indians and two Ukrainians.

And that was only part of one bloody day. The US military said it had finished a third consecutive night of strikes on Iranian targets - an operation it described as „five hours long". The targets were coastal defence systems, missile positions, drone facilities and naval capabilities across several Iranian cities. Iran hit back - reportedly striking US bases in Bahrain, where air-raid sirens sounded twice, while Jordan intercepted four Iranian missiles.

But the biggest bomb wasn't military, it was economic. Donald Trump announced that the US will reimpose a blockade on Iranian ports and take control of the strait - plus a 20% tax on every cargo passing through it, supposedly for „security costs". Iran shot back that the strait is Iranian territory and rejected any American interference. Who actually commands one of the world's most important maritime chokepoints is now an open question, with missiles as the arguments.

And the fallout spills far beyond the Gulf immediately. The price of oil jumped to its highest level in four weeks - „Brent" rose 2% to nearly 85 dollars a barrel, right after the blockade announcement. A significant share of the world's oil passes through the Strait of Hormuz, and every price hike there reaches our pumps faster than we think. The war we watch on screen stopped being far away long ago - it's in the price of every litre we pour.