The US is facing the largest oil crisis in modern history as Iran continues launching explosive suicide boats at fuel tankers in the Middle East, despite Donald Trump claiming the war has already been ‘won.’
Iranian boats appear to have struck two fuel tankers in the Strait of Hormuz, setting them ablaze and killing one crew member on Wednesday. Four other vessels in the Gulf waters were also reportedly hit by Iranian projectiles.
The unprecedented turmoil in oil markets caused by Trump’s war is reportedly affecting 7.5% of global supply and exports, according to experts.
‘The war in the Middle East is creating the largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market,’ said the International Energy Agency on Thursday. Members of the agency released 400 million barrels from emergency reserves on Wednesday to counterbalance the pricing chaos.
Shipping in the Gulf and along the narrow strait, which carries around a fifth of the world’s oil, has come to a near-standstill. Gas prices have rocketed to an average of $3.6 per gallon from $2.9 before the war began, as oil prices hit levels not seen since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 to nearly $100 a barrel as of Thursday morning.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have said that if attacks on Iran continued, they would not allow ‘one litre of oil’ to be shipped from the Middle East to the US, Israel or their partners.
Trump said yesterday during a rally speech in Kentucky that the US had already won the war with Iran. As nonstop bombings in the Middle East have caused energy prices to soar around the globe, the President insisted that the conflict was already over.
‘It’s only good if you win,’ Trump told his supporter: ‘And we’ve won.’
The latest attacks on ships linked to the U.S. and Europe mark an escalation in the conflict between Iran and US and Israeli forces, raising the number of ships struck in the region since fighting began to at least 16.
The vessels targeted in Wednesday’s late-night attacks in the Gulf near Iraq were the Marshall Islands-flagged Safesea Vishnu and the Malta-flagged Zefyros.
Iran claimed it attacked the shipping vessel off Iraq and released a video purports to show the moment the ship was attacked.
The footage appears to show explosions striking the Safesea Vishnu, as a man can be heard shouting in Farsi: ‘Allah is the greatest!’
Following the attack, Iraq’s oil ports have completed shutdown all operations as rescue operations currently remain ongoing for missing seafarers.
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said the crew of one ship had been evacuated and were reported safe.
A boat owned by the Iraqi Ports Company rescued 25 crew members from the two vessels hit by Iranian bombs.
‘We recovered the body of a foreign crew member from the water,’ one port security official said.
Shipping in the Gulf and along the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which carries around a fifth of the world’s oil, has come to a near-standstill
Gas prices have rocketed to an average of $3.6 per gallon from $2.9 before the war began, as oil prices hit new levels of nearly $100 a barrel as of Thursday morning
Trump boasted that America had won the war against, but then went on to claim the US could not pull out ‘too early’.
‘You know, you never like to say too early ‘you won.’ We won… In the first hour it was over,’ he said at a rally in Hebron, Kentucky.
‘We have very good news on the war front, namely they are absolutely being destroyed – Iran is.’
The President added, ‘The main thing is, we have to win this thing – we need to win it,’ he went on. ‘And there are many people, just watching some of the news, most people say it’s already been won – it’s just a question of when. When do we stop?’