U.S. and Iran Trade Strikes as Hormuz Transit Deal Collapses
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- Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps declared the Strait of Hormuz closed to all ship traffic 'until further notice' via state outlet PressTV, prompting Trump to counter publicly on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that the waterway remains open to commercial vessels.
- Trump ordered renewed U.S. airstrikes Saturday after Iran attacked the M/V GFS Galaxy, a Cyprus-flagged container ship transiting the strait, causing an onboard fire, significant engine room damage, and leaving one civilian crew member missing, U.S. Central Command said.
- Iran responded by targeting U.S. facilities in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, and Oman; Qatar intercepted several ballistic missiles and its foreign ministry held Tehran 'fully and legally responsible' for what it called a 'dangerous escalation.'
- The June 17 U.S.-Iran memorandum to reopen the strait collapsed because it never defined precise transit routes, according to former Obama-era State Department energy envoy David Goldwyn, who called the omission the 'underlying problem.'
- Iran is now demanding vessels use a northern route through its territorial waters, while U.S. forces protect a southern route along Oman's coast — the unresolved geography at the center of this week's third round of U.S. strikes on Iran.
- Oman summoned the Iranian ambassador and delivered a formal protest note after drone attacks struck sites in the Musandam and Al Wusta governorates, even as Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was meeting Omani mediators there.
- France and the U.K. are studying Oman-drafted proposals that would allow navigational fees in the strait, provided tolls are non-compulsory and backed by the UN's International Maritime Organization, a senior Middle East diplomat told MS Now.
Why it matters: Gulf states from Qatar to Oman are now absorbing Iranian missile and drone strikes, turning a bilateral clash into a regional crisis. The structural failure is the June 17 MoU's decision to leave transit routes undefined — Iran's insistence on a northern corridor through its territorial waters now collides directly with U.S.-escorted southern routes along Oman, and Oman itself has been forced to file a diplomatic protest against its own mediator partner.
