One of the things about government that Donald Trump has never understood is that threats are not a form of politics. Trump’s war in Iran was characterized by presidents threatening to drop more bombs. Iran responded to these threats by ignoring or mocking them.
Threats are only effective if they are taken seriously. Trump has been threatening for months, but he never follows through, so Iran doesn’t seem to believe him.
After the bombing failed to force Iran to surrender and the Iranians responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz, Trump responded with a blockade of the strait which he said was intended to force the Iranians to the negotiating table because they would run out of storage capacity for their oil and be forced to halt production.
Bloomberg columnist Javier Blas posted on X that Trump’s new efforts to reopen the strait are an admission that the blockade has failed:
The desire to reopen the Strait of Hormuz today, with the passage of two American warships and two American-flagged merchant ships, indicates that the White House realizes that it cannot continue to wait for the blockade to force Iran to the negotiating table.
In fact, it is an admission that the blockade does not work (if the blockade is seen as a means to obtain Iranian concessions rather than as an end in itself). The timing of the consequences of the blockade on the Iranian oil industry was completely wrong.
The blockade was intended to pressure Iran into ending the war by forcing it to face the same pressures imposed by the Trump administration, but since that didn’t work, Trump is returning to threatening Iran.