United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday (25) that the US Navy removed or detonated all the naval mines Iran had planted in the Strait of Hormuz, the passage that carried a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG) output before the current Middle East war. A day later, the Tehran regime announced an agreement with Oman to manage the now-blocked strait, including a temporary navigation corridor and a joint demining project.
The foreign ministers of Iran and Oman met in Tehran on Tuesday and issued a joint statement on "the implementation of a phased plan", according to g1. The formal announcement came on Wednesday (26), when Iran's deputy foreign minister, Kazem Gharibabadi, told state TV that the strait will remain blocked until the details are finalized, Folha de S.Paulo reported. "The agreed route is temporary," he said. The day before, Trump had written on his Truth Social network that the United States is monitoring every square inch of the strait by satellite, through the Space Force, and will attack any vessel that tries to lay new mines.
"I have just been informed by the United States Navy that all mines have been removed and/or detonated in the international waters of the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has been notified that any ship or vessel that lays new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed. A zero tolerance policy for mine placement is in full effect," Trump wrote.
What it means for Brazil
For Brazil, the Hormuz chapter is read mainly at the gas pump. The war and the blocked strait pushed up international oil prices, and the effect reached Brazilian consumers: this week, the Finance Ministry extended until September 9 a subsidy of 0.44 reais per liter of gasoline, created in May to shield the economy from the war, according to g1. To justify the extension, the ministry cited "recent swings in the international oil and derivatives market" and their potential effects on domestic fuel prices.
The size of that cushion shows in the May figures: without the subsidy, a 0.48-real price increase by Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, would have been passed on in full to distributors; with it, the effective increase was 0.04 reais per liter. In July, the National Energy Policy Council (CNPE) raised the share of anhydrous ethanol blended into gasoline to 32%, another move to contain fuel inflation. If the demining announced by Trump and the corridor negotiated by Tehran and Muscat normalize the flow through Hormuz, the pressure tends to ease. Until then, volatility remains the official scenario.
Competing interests in the strait
Trump's reference to "international waters" clashes with local geography. As Folha points out, there are no international waters in the strait, only the meeting of the territorial limits of Iran, to the north, and Oman, to the south, separated by as little as 39 km. Before the war, traffic flowed freely through a corridor with three 3-km lanes: one inbound, one outbound and one for separation. Washington, which started the war alongside Israel on February 28, has said it opposes any solution for Hormuz that does not go through its control. On Monday (24), US War Secretary Pete Hegseth said he "by no means" rules out "the use of kinetic strikes at any point in the Strait of Hormuz or around Iran", on the same day the US announced a new round of sanctions against Tehran in an offensive dubbed "economic D-Day".
On the other side, Iran seeks to turn geography into revenue and sanctions relief. "In these negotiations, agreements were reached on Iran's and Oman's share of the waters and their revenues," said Hossein Mohebbi, a spokesman for the Revolutionary Guard, according to Folha; the force says the arrangement will only be implemented once the US agrees to its terms. Iran's economy minister promised "another defeat" for the US and said he has a "two-year plan" to face American restrictions. Oman, meanwhile, is trying to recover the mediator role it played before the conflict, in which it has been targeted by 70 Iranian attacks, Folha reports. Last week, Trump went as far as threatening to bomb the sultanate, an American ally, if talks with Tehran moved forward.
Trump also accused Tehran again of executing protesters and spoke of a "humanitarian crisis of epic proportions". Iran's foreign minister replied that the new sanctions are "a threat to international law and the UN charter". With the strait still blocked and the deal's details open, the normalization of Hormuz remains a promise conditional on a green light that Washington has not given so far.