Julian Borger

But at the moment, on the whole, the shipping owners, from what we hear, and certainly the insurance companies are very cautious about this.

What they want and what they're holding out for is an agreement between Iran and the US that they will both lift their blockades and let all the shipping out and open the strait again.

That's what Iran has put on the table, the kind of mutual lifting, but without any discussion about the other issues like nuclear and security.

And that's something that the U.S.

has not gone for.

Instead, they've gone for this sort of more unilateral solution of trying to open a channel out of the strait without Iran's permission.

Well, sometimes he affects not to really care about the Strait of Hormuz and he says, well, high oil prices help U.S.

oil producers.

But on other times, he seems almost desperate to get this resolved because high petrol prices in the U.S.

are beginning to buy.

Also, he has a trip going to China and the Chinese government, a major importer of Iranian oil,

buys about 80% of Iranian oil, is not happy about what is happening.

And Trump had a whole agenda about what he wanted to talk about in Beijing.

But now it looks like, you know, if the situation is unresolved, he's going to be just answering questions about the state of Hormuz and be on the back foot.

So, you know, he is under pressure to get something done to move the status quo.

Clearly, they were expecting a quick win, regime change within weeks.

This is what, in particular, Israel promised was going to happen.

Hasn't worked out like that.

But it hasn't quite worked out as many Trump watchers would have imagined, too.

They imagined that he would fold over high oil prices, inflation, unpopularity.