Oil prices remained above prewar levels on Thursday, as U.S. and Iranian military forces traded a strikes around the Persian Gulf for a second straight day.
And fresh data showed that the number of ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz halved on Wednesday amid renewed fighting, imperiling a nascent recovery in ship traffic.
President Trump said the latest U.S. attacks, which targeted around 90 sites along Iran’s coast, were “retribution” for Iran’s attacks on commercial ships in the strait, a vital waterway for the region’s energy exports. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran’s top negotiator in peace talks, said that the strait “will open only under Iranian arrangements, not American threats.”
The International Maritime Organization, a United Nations agency, recently urged shipowners and operators to avoid sending their ships through the strait, which had only recently begun to see an uptick in traffic after a cease-fire agreement between the United States and Iran was signed last month. Mr. Trump said on Wednesday that he thought the three-week-old agreement was “over,” although he later suggested that Iran was open to making a deal. Iran has said nothing about new negotiations.
