# The Strait of Hormuz Was (Briefly) Open. Now What?

An episode of [Big Take](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1578096201), 17 Apr 2026, 16 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/tracking.swap.fm/track/UVBrz8bN8aM2Xe47PEPu/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/825d4e29-b616-46f4-afd7-ae2b0013005c/43a4992c-dda4-4885-b612-b42f0148a350/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=8b1dd624-a026-43e9-8b57-ae2b00130066

The Strait of Hormuz is now open. In a social media post Friday morning, Iran’s Foreign Minister wrote that Iran will be letting ships through the vital waterway for the duration of a 10-day ceasefire in Lebanon. Oil prices fell, and President Trump celebrated. But Iran’s announcement came with a big caveat: Travel must use a “coordinated route,” specified by Iran. On today’s Big Take, host David Gura and Bloomberg’s Middle East breaking news editor, Patrick Sykes, talk through Iran’s dramatic reversal, how open the Strait of Hormuz really is — and how long the latest ceasefire might hold. This is a developing story. We are live blogging at Bloomberg.com with the latest from across the globe. We have a special Bloomberg subscription offer for podcast listeners at Bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. Hosted by David Gura; Produced by Rachael Lewis-Krisky and David Fox; Reported by Patrick Sykes; Edited by Tracey Samuelson. Fact-checking by Eleanor Harrison-Dengate and Laura Newcombe; Engineering by Alex Sugiura. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:02] Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
[0:08] Speaker 2: The Straight of Horror Moves is now open. The news
[0:11] Speaker 2: came at eight forty five am Eastern Standard time.
[0:14] Speaker 3: In a post on x Foreign Minister Ambas Arachi said,
[0:18] Speaker 3: in line with the ceasefire in Lebanon, the passage for
[0:21] Speaker 3: all commercial vessels through the Straight of Horror Moves is
[0:24] Speaker 3: declared completely open for the remaining period of ceasefire.
[0:29] Speaker 2: How did you react to that news? What was your
[0:30] Speaker 2: first thought?
[0:31] Speaker 4: My first thought was the old price.
[0:33] Speaker 2: Bloomberg's Patrick Sykes, who edits breaking news out of the
[0:36] Speaker 2: Middle East, watched as the price of Brent crude plunged
[0:40] Speaker 2: by as much as ten percent to eighty eight dollars
[0:42] Speaker 2: a barrel on optimism that oil from the region will
[0:46] Speaker 2: be able to reach global markets once again.
[0:48] Speaker 1: My second thought was, hang on a minute, is clearly
[0:52] Speaker 1: still referring to that uh Iran approved route.
[0:57] Speaker 2: A key second part of that social media post from
[0:59] Speaker 2: the fourgy minus the ships must travel on a specific
[1:02] Speaker 2: route determined by Iran.
[1:04] Speaker 1: Iran still wants to see vessels coming via that new route,
[1:07] Speaker 1: closer to its shore than the previous one, and still
[1:10] Speaker 1: working in coordination with its authorities namely the military, the IOGC.
[1:15] Speaker 1: So I think important to emphasize this is not a
[1:18] Speaker 1: return to the pre war status quo. Iran is still
[1:22] Speaker 1: the one setting the terms of entry and exit in
[1:25] Speaker 1: and it's still the one setting the terms of how
[1:28] Speaker 1: those passages will be done.
[1:30] Speaker 2: That is not how President Trump sees it. He was
[1:33] Speaker 2: posting on social media throughout the morning, throughout my conversation
[1:36] Speaker 2: with Patrick, celebrating the news, saying the Strait is completely
[1:40] Speaker 2: open and ready for business, declaring a great and brilliant
[1:44] Speaker 2: day for the world. It's something he doubled down on
[1:47] Speaker 2: in a phone interview with Bloomberg White House correspondent Kate Sullivan.
[1:51] Speaker 2: Trump set a deal to end the war is mostly complete,
[1:54] Speaker 2: that Iran has agreed to suspend its nuclear program indefinitely.
[1:57] Speaker 5: So when I spoke to him for a few minutes
[1:59] Speaker 5: this morning on the phone, for all these questions about
[2:01] Speaker 5: whether this would be a temporary or indefinite, and the
[2:04] Speaker 5: President was very clear. He said no, years, unlimited, he said.
[2:08] Speaker 5: I asked a couple of times whether this would be indefinite.
[2:10] Speaker 5: He said, no, unlimited.
[2:12] Speaker 2: But even as we're seeing ships enter the Strait testing
[2:15] Speaker 2: this new openness, Patrick says there is still a lot
[2:18] Speaker 2: of uncertainty. I'm David Gerrett and this is the big
[2:28] Speaker 2: take from Bloomberg News today on the show how open
[2:31] Speaker 2: is the straight of hormones? How did this dramatic reversal
[2:34] Speaker 2: come to be? And the world is wondering will it last?
[2:43] Speaker 2: While the straight of hor moves is now open. President
[2:45] Speaker 2: Trump posted on social media this morning that the US
[2:48] Speaker 2: blockade of vessels attempting to enter or exit Iranian ports
[2:52] Speaker 2: will continue.
[2:53] Speaker 1: We've lost one of the two blockades, right. We had
[2:56] Speaker 1: kind of two parallel blockades facing each other, Iran on
[2:59] Speaker 1: the one hunt dictating it so in terms for who
[3:02] Speaker 1: could and couldn't come out of the strain, and the
[3:05] Speaker 1: US doing the same, but obviously targeted specifically Iranian shipping interests.
[3:10] Speaker 1: So as of now, it seems that Iran is happy
[3:13] Speaker 1: to let those other ships, including American or American linked
[3:17] Speaker 1: ones come. That wasn't the case ever since the war
[3:21] Speaker 1: broke out. But on the flip side, the US still
[3:24] Speaker 1: ostensibly intends to interdict, potentially even seize sanctioned Iranian ships,
[3:30] Speaker 1: Iranian ships that it considers to be carrying contraband.
[3:34] Speaker 2: Patrick Walkers through what's going to happen here over the
[3:36] Speaker 2: next few minutes and hours and days. We had a
[3:39] Speaker 2: conversation a few weeks ago with the retired Anneral James Tavritez,
[3:41] Speaker 2: who talked about kind of the psychology of captains of
[3:44] Speaker 2: these ships would be worried about taking their vessels through
[3:47] Speaker 2: the strait given what may or may not be there,
[3:50] Speaker 2: or how open it in fact may actually be. I
[3:54] Speaker 2: guess my first thought here was would I want to
[3:56] Speaker 2: be that captain taking my ship through first?
[3:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you'd feel more assured than yesterday, but
[4:02] Speaker 1: you wouldn't be fully reassured. I think we've had some
[4:05] Speaker 1: initial conversations with owners and traders already, and people are saying, Okay,
[4:10] Speaker 1: this is good news, this is welcome kind of signaling,
[4:13] Speaker 1: but we do need to see how it translates on
[4:16] Speaker 1: the ground. Right, in particular, they still want to know
[4:19] Speaker 1: what insurers make of it. Right, that piece of the puzzle,
[4:22] Speaker 1: the insurance was the key element that meant some of
[4:25] Speaker 1: those who maybe had the risk appetite themselves to go
[4:29] Speaker 1: in and out of horor moves or try to do so,
[4:31] Speaker 1: didn't feel comfortable doing so because ultimately they didn't have
[4:35] Speaker 1: the cover that they needed. So far, we've seen some
[4:38] Speaker 1: industry associations, tank cooperators and so on saying that they
[4:42] Speaker 1: still need to see exactly how it would work, and
[4:45] Speaker 1: I think we can expect a lot of more of that.
[4:48] Speaker 2: You and I are talking mid morning New York time.
[4:51] Speaker 2: Best we know right now. How did this reopening come
[4:54] Speaker 2: to be?
[4:55] Speaker 1: I see it in the light of the expected resumption
[4:59] Speaker 1: of tour between Iran and the US in the coming days,
[5:02] Speaker 1: potentially this weekend. Recall that the ceasefire between them is
[5:07] Speaker 1: set to expire early next week, so if that's not
[5:10] Speaker 1: going to be extended, as Trump signaled in is in
[5:13] Speaker 1: some of his latest comments, we do need to see
[5:16] Speaker 1: some kind of deal, however preliminary over the weekend. So
[5:21] Speaker 1: I think from Iran this is a kind of a gesture,
[5:24] Speaker 1: a positive gesture. They'll frame it as one of goodwill
[5:27] Speaker 1: in order to keep those negotiations on track. And we
[5:30] Speaker 1: can see from Trump's reaction, from the market reaction that
[5:33] Speaker 1: it's being perceived I think suitably positively, even if substantively
[5:38] Speaker 1: for the reasons I mentioned about insurance and on a
[5:41] Speaker 1: lack of clarity on the ground, it may not actually
[5:44] Speaker 1: change that.
[5:44] Speaker 2: Much Lebanon has been a huge sticking point here. We
[5:47] Speaker 2: had this meeting in Washington, DC this week between Israel's
[5:50] Speaker 2: ambassador to the US and Lebanon's ambassador to the US.
[5:53] Speaker 2: Wouldn't call it negotiations, just talks, but these were talks
[5:56] Speaker 2: without preston. We haven't had them for many years as
[5:59] Speaker 2: kind of direct talk. Why has Lebanon shaped up to
[6:02] Speaker 2: be such a sticking point here? In this other conflict
[6:05] Speaker 2: in the Iran War.
[6:06] Speaker 1: As in Lebanon became really important, and we saw that
[6:09] Speaker 1: in the first round of talks, Iran wouldn't even walk
[6:11] Speaker 1: into their actual negotiation room until it was able to say,
[6:15] Speaker 1: rightly or wrongly, that it felt Israel pulled back somewhat
[6:19] Speaker 1: on its Lebanese front and had therefore taken a step
[6:23] Speaker 1: towards implementing the ceasefar. Iran is basically linking the two
[6:27] Speaker 1: conflicts right, making its own cease far with the US
[6:31] Speaker 1: conditional on the implementation of Israel's cees far with Lebanon
[6:35] Speaker 1: or more specifically with Hesbula. For Iran, this is partly
[6:39] Speaker 1: a political thing. They don't want to be seen to
[6:41] Speaker 1: be disowning their allies in the region. Hesbela, of course
[6:45] Speaker 1: one of their main proxies. But beyond that, I think
[6:48] Speaker 1: it also feeds into the Iranians demand that however this
[6:51] Speaker 1: war ends, it ends in a way that brings a
[6:54] Speaker 1: conclusion to the conflict, not just in Iran, but in
[6:57] Speaker 1: the whole region. Right, we've seen these over the past
[7:01] Speaker 1: sort of year or even longer, ever since October the
[7:04] Speaker 1: seventh in Gaza, right in Israel, these bouts of conflict
[7:08] Speaker 1: where it's come up again and again, and Iran in
[7:11] Speaker 1: particular feels it's been burned by holding negotiations multiple times
[7:16] Speaker 1: only for them to collapse into conflict. So it's looking
[7:19] Speaker 1: for a more lasting conclusion to the conflict, not just
[7:22] Speaker 1: at home but in the region.
[7:24] Speaker 2: As you and I are talking, the present United States
[7:26] Speaker 2: is still posting on social media and he writes again,
[7:29] Speaker 2: this deal is not tied in any way to Lebanon,
[7:32] Speaker 2: but we will make Lebanon great again. Maybe we can
[7:36] Speaker 2: step back and talk a bit about the US is
[7:38] Speaker 2: engagement with that other conflict. So, of course, the US
[7:41] Speaker 2: and Israel launching this war against Iran at the same
[7:45] Speaker 2: time Israel launching this incursion into leban What does that
[7:49] Speaker 2: tweet say to you broadly about the president's engagement with
[7:52] Speaker 2: that other conflict between Israel and Lebanon.
[7:55] Speaker 1: I think it says that he's got to balance those
[7:57] Speaker 1: two audiences, right. He wants a deal with Iran, but
[8:00] Speaker 1: he also doesn't want to be seen to be caving
[8:03] Speaker 1: to Iranian demands. That he quote reign in Israel his
[8:08] Speaker 1: key ally in all of this, and that, I think
[8:10] Speaker 1: is exactly how Iran is going to frame it, right.
[8:13] Speaker 1: It's going to say that we were able, through the
[8:15] Speaker 1: leverage we accrued in the course of the war, to
[8:18] Speaker 1: force America, the Great Satan, the global superpower, to reign
[8:23] Speaker 1: in Israel on our terms. That's how I think we
[8:26] Speaker 1: can expect Iran to be framed here.
[8:28] Speaker 2: Patrick, you mentioned the fragility of this ceasefire. What needs
[8:31] Speaker 2: to happen here in the next ten days for that
[8:33] Speaker 2: ceasefire to hold longer than that?
[8:36] Speaker 1: I think we need a deal, right, We need a
[8:37] Speaker 1: deal as soon as this weekend. We know that the
[8:41] Speaker 1: sides have talked about a freeze on Iran's uranium enrichment.
[8:45] Speaker 1: The other point I think there's less clarity on is
[8:47] Speaker 1: what happens to Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium. If
[8:52] Speaker 1: the US were to negotiate some kind of way to
[8:54] Speaker 1: extract or neutralize that, that, I think it could claim
[8:58] Speaker 1: as a major win of the kind of caliber that
[9:00] Speaker 1: would allow it to draw a line under the conflict.
[9:03] Speaker 1: Whether or not that in turn keeps Israel in check
[9:07] Speaker 1: and Israel sticks to the terms of that, not just
[9:09] Speaker 1: in the immediate aftermath, but longer term as well, I
[9:12] Speaker 1: think is less certain and remains to be seen.
[9:16] Speaker 2: Coming up. For years, Iran had threatened to close the
[9:19] Speaker 2: strait of hormones. Now that the country has done it,
[9:22] Speaker 2: will it do it again?
[9:35] Speaker 4: Patrick?
[9:36] Speaker 2: I go back to what you said at the beginning,
[9:37] Speaker 2: which is you saw this news and immediately thought about
[9:39] Speaker 2: the price of oil, And indeed we've seen oil prices
[9:41] Speaker 2: plunge off of this news. The S and P was
[9:43] Speaker 2: already rallying going into this. What does all of this
[9:46] Speaker 2: say about the way investors are thinking about this conflict
[9:51] Speaker 2: now seven weeks in.
[9:52] Speaker 1: I think it's testament to the fact that traders are
[9:55] Speaker 1: digesting this news with just voracious appetite, right, and that
[10:00] Speaker 1: all of the President's tweets, his comments, however often contradictory,
[10:06] Speaker 1: they may be, they have that power to push markets
[10:09] Speaker 1: in one direction or another just because A the appetite
[10:13] Speaker 1: is so great, and B you know, ultimately it is
[10:17] Speaker 1: the president of the United States. And whatever your view
[10:21] Speaker 1: on Trump's credibility as a speaker, I think markets do
[10:25] Speaker 1: have to to an extent take him at his word
[10:28] Speaker 1: because those words are sending signals to markets in real time.
[10:33] Speaker 2: His credibility is a speaker and a tweeter as well.
[10:35] Speaker 2: I keep going back to the post that he's making
[10:37] Speaker 2: this morning, and another one has to do with the
[10:39] Speaker 2: prospect of there being minds in the Strait of war moves.
[10:42] Speaker 2: He wrote, Iran, with the help of the USA, has
[10:44] Speaker 2: removed or is removing all c minds. What sense do
[10:49] Speaker 2: we have of how littered this strait is with minds,
[10:52] Speaker 2: how real that danger is, and how much progress indeed
[10:55] Speaker 2: the US has made clearing those from this waterway?
[10:58] Speaker 4: Very little?
[10:59] Speaker 1: In short, I mean Iran has been deliberately ambiguous about
[11:03] Speaker 1: whether or not it has indeed mind the straight The
[11:06] Speaker 1: most recent indication we had was last week when the
[11:09] Speaker 1: authorities in Iran published this map of their new accepted
[11:14] Speaker 1: route through the strait closer to the Iranian shore. It
[11:17] Speaker 1: said that it was establishing this route in order to
[11:20] Speaker 1: protect shipping from mines, right, so it hints that there's
[11:23] Speaker 1: a danger there without claiming to be the party responsible
[11:27] Speaker 1: for it. Beyond that, the reporting has been more mixed about,
[11:30] Speaker 1: you know, the extent to which has been mined, the
[11:33] Speaker 1: number of minds in the area. But ultimately the clearing
[11:37] Speaker 1: of them, however many they are wherever they were initially placed,
[11:41] Speaker 1: will be really important because it may be that, you know,
[11:44] Speaker 1: they are no longer in the place that they were
[11:47] Speaker 1: initially set down by Iran, and that brings whole new
[11:51] Speaker 1: risks if they've come closer to the Amani show that
[11:54] Speaker 1: being of course closer to where the previous.
[11:57] Speaker 4: Transit route through Holmons was.
[11:59] Speaker 1: It's just a whole other danger that is going to
[12:01] Speaker 1: outlive the actual hot conflict that could be resolved with
[12:05] Speaker 1: a deal.
[12:05] Speaker 2: Before this conflict, there is always this fear out there
[12:08] Speaker 2: that Iran could do something like this, could shut down
[12:10] Speaker 2: traffic through this crucial passage where create chaos and the
[12:13] Speaker 2: global oil market the idea that it could weaponize the
[12:15] Speaker 2: straight up form is that threat alone seemingly enough to
[12:18] Speaker 2: move markets here. Now that Iran has done this over
[12:22] Speaker 2: these last few weeks, what have we learned about that
[12:24] Speaker 2: as a potent weapon.
[12:26] Speaker 4: I think we've learned that it will cross the rubicon. Right.
[12:28] Speaker 1: It's been a threat made for decades, and it was
[12:32] Speaker 1: a frequent judgment call we had to make reporting on it.
[12:36] Speaker 1: When you know some military official would refer to this threat,
[12:40] Speaker 1: we'd have to assess, Okay, how seriously do we take
[12:42] Speaker 1: it in the current context from this guy and so on.
[12:45] Speaker 1: Now that it's been done, I think those threats are
[12:47] Speaker 1: going to be taken a lot more seriously whenever they're
[12:50] Speaker 1: made and whoever they're made by. Iran has said that
[12:53] Speaker 1: it is prepared to use that nuclear option, and it's
[12:57] Speaker 1: indeed referred to this as it's nuclear right. This ability
[13:01] Speaker 1: to strangle hold the global economy, it's a kind of
[13:05] Speaker 1: leverage that it never got with the whole nuclear debate.
[13:08] Speaker 1: No matter how much it enriched, no matter how much
[13:11] Speaker 1: it's stockpile, it was never able to exert this kind
[13:14] Speaker 1: of outsized, asymmetric influence far beyond its borders. So it's
[13:19] Speaker 1: crossed the rubicon, and I don't think it's going to
[13:21] Speaker 1: easily give up on the threaten even the control that
[13:26] Speaker 1: is accrued.
[13:27] Speaker 2: I'll ask you lastly, just about the way in which
[13:29] Speaker 2: the US has processed the might of this new weapon
[13:32] Speaker 2: of being able to close the strait, and the President
[13:35] Speaker 2: posted this morning Iran has agreed to never close the
[13:37] Speaker 2: Straight of Hormuz again. It will no longer be used
[13:39] Speaker 2: as a weapon against the world, the President signing that
[13:42] Speaker 2: post once again. Over the last twenty four to forty
[13:45] Speaker 2: eight hours, the President has made claims about what Iran
[13:47] Speaker 2: has said it would agree to or has agreed to,
[13:50] Speaker 2: claims that we haven't been able to verify from the
[13:51] Speaker 2: Iranians themselves. What do you make of the way that
[13:54] Speaker 2: the US has reacted to Iran's recognition of this power
[13:57] Speaker 2: that they have in controlling.
[13:58] Speaker 1: That waterways to me like building the material for a
[14:03] Speaker 1: claim of victory.
[14:04] Speaker 4: Right.
[14:04] Speaker 1: The Iranians, as you say, have been much less vocal
[14:08] Speaker 1: about how positively things are going. I don't see them
[14:12] Speaker 1: making any public statement to the effect that they will
[14:15] Speaker 1: never close it again, because the whole strength of the
[14:18] Speaker 1: threat rests on the uncertainty about whether they will or
[14:21] Speaker 1: won't use it and in what circumstances. And I think
[14:24] Speaker 1: I just go back to that the original tweet by
[14:26] Speaker 1: the Foreign Minister aral she where he makes very clear.
[14:30] Speaker 4: This is conditional.
[14:31] Speaker 1: This is as long as the ceasefire lasts, and it's
[14:34] Speaker 1: only happening now because the seafire in Lebanon is at
[14:38] Speaker 1: a maturity that we feel is sufficient. So the signaling
[14:42] Speaker 1: from Iran is much more cautious. I think statements from
[14:45] Speaker 1: the President that it would never happen again he may
[14:48] Speaker 1: be hoping, though, that kind of thing is easily forgotten
[14:51] Speaker 1: if within a few days we're talking about a piece
[14:54] Speaker 1: deal and that becomes the headline that dominates the agenda.
[15:05] Speaker 2: This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
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