Sarah: The MoU is gone, and the argument over what it actually bought just got very expensive.
Sarah: New to this story? Here’s where things stand.
Sarah: The Hormuz maritime crisis is about more than one strait: U.S.
Sarah: blockade enforcement, Iranian-backed pressure, and Red Sea attacks have all squeezed commercial shipping.
Sarah: Iran previously said it had a safe-route understanding with Oman for ships passing through Hormuz
Sarah: but also said normal security couldn’t return while U.S.
Sarah: maritime sanctions, military movements, and blockade conditions remained in place.
Rich: This is Iran War Daily.
Rich: Today: the barrel count, the human cost, and who gets stuck with the bill now that Washington says talks aren’t even scheduled.
Sarah: This one's from Al Jazeera:
Quote: Oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz nearly tripled while the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the United States and Iran was in
Quote: effect though it remained far below pre-war levels
Quote: according to ship tracking data.
Quote: Some 374 million barrels of oil exited the Gulf during the 60-day window covered by the since-expired MoU
Quote: equalling about 6.1 million barrels per day
Quote: trade intelligence firm Kpler said in a briefing published on Wednesday.
Rich: Kpler’s scorecard: 374 million barrels in 60 days, or 6.1 million a day.
Rich: That’s better than the 2.3 million before the June 17 MoU—still just 40 percent of the roughly 15 million barrels a day Hormuz handled in
Rich: 2025.
Sarah: And that improvement came early.
Sarah: Kpler says more than half those shipments moved in the agreement’s first three weeks.
Sarah: By the end, analyst Emmanuel Belostrino said flows were thinning and re-accumulating behind the chokepoint.
Rich: That’s what a temporary corridor looks like when the security problem still isn’t solved.
Rich: UKMTO has logged five commercial-vessel attacks in the past week, and a crew member died after a cargo ship was hit off Oman Tuesday.
Rich: More barrels moved, but the route was still dangerous.
Sarah: The MoU expired Monday without a peace deal.
Sarah: Kpler’s figures show what it achieved—and how far normal Gulf traffic still had to go.
Sarah: From Alison Bath at Stars and Stripes:
Quote: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that the U.S.
Quote: was not in talks with Iran
Quote: while insisting the Strait of Hormuz was open and clear of sea mines
Quote: adding to uncertainty over efforts to end the nearly six-month war.
Quote: “There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
Quote: He added that the U.S.
Quote: blockade of Iranian ports remained in effect.
Rich: Trump says Hormuz is “open and clear,” while CENTCOM’s own August 17 tally says U.S.
Rich: forces redirected 64 ships, disabled three, and boarded two.
Rich: That’s a blockade with a scoreboard.
Sarah: And the human cost is specific. The U.K.
Sarah: Maritime Trade Operations center says an unknown projectile hit a vessel near Oman, damaged its engine room, and caused a crew casualty.
Sarah: It didn’t identify the attacker or say whether that mariner was killed or injured.
Rich: Then there’s the diplomatic message: Trump’s August 18 Truth Social post says no talks with Iran are happening or scheduled
Rich: while the port blockade stays in force.
Rich: A map calling the strait “New U.S.
Rich: Territory” doesn’t make insurers—or ship crews—feel any safer.
Sarah: We just heard what the MoU restored in oil flows.
Sarah: This filing shows what remains: attacks near Oman, redirected ships, and no publicly scheduled U.S.-Iran channel.
Sarah: Mike Hanna, writing in Al Jazeera:
Quote: US President Donald Trump has threatened ‘economic D-Day’ on any countries that help or do business with Iran.
Quote: Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna explains how the threat, though vague, signals a renewed focus on economic, rather than military, action.
Rich: Washington is now threatening countries that trade with Iran, not just Iran itself.
Rich: Who’s in the crosshairs first?
Rich: Trump has named the weapon but left the target list foggy.
Sarah: Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna calls the threat vague, and that matters.
Sarah: Trump’s August 18 post said no Iran talks were scheduled.
Sarah: Two days later, the declared next step is economic pressure with no publicly defined terms.
Rich: And after the Kpler numbers we just ran—6.1 million barrels a day during the MoU
Rich: against roughly 21 million before the war—this pressure hits a market already limping.
Rich: Brilliant time to make every insurer and cargo buyer guess the rules.
Sarah: The shift is clear: military enforcement is still part of the standoff, but the White House is putting economic pressure front and center.
Sarah: No specifics have been announced on the measure, where it would apply, or when.
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Host: Links to every story we covered are in the show notes, if you want to dig into anything that caught your attention.
Host: Thanks for listening.
Host: We’ll be back tomorrow.
Host: That’s Iran War Daily for today.
Host: This is a Lantern Podcast.