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Iran's grip on trade is a potent weapon, but it has an expiry date
Iran has turned its ability to restrict commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz into a potent economic weapon in the war imposed by the United States and Israel. IMF PortWatch shows that in the seven days ending August 2, an average of only about four ships per day passed through the strait, compared with about 90 during the corresponding week of 2025. Estimated transit volume fell from 3.5 million to about 143,000 metric tonnes per day. Both indicators declined by approximately 96 percent. This was not a temporary collapse in traffic but a sustained disruption. Since February 28, both vessel traffic and estimated tonnage have remained far below their levels in the previous year, with only brief recoveries. Tehran has therefore already demonstrated that it can impose severe disruption on commercial traffic. The question is no longer whether Iran can disrupt trade through Hormuz, but how effectively it can convert that disruption into political leverage, and for how long. A useful framework for understanding this strategy comes from political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, who describe how states can turn control over central nodes in international networks into coercive power, a process they call “weaponised interdependence”. In Hormuz,...
