President Donald Trump has reportedly stunned allies by telling them late last night he might decide to end the bloody war with Iran without opening the vital Strait of Hormuz oil route. The critical waterway in the Middle East has been closed by the Iranians since the US-Israeli war began on February 28.

The strait usually carries 20% of the world’s oil and gas supplies and since it has been closed the global economy has been hit hard with soaring fuel prices. In the UK petrol stations have already started to run dry, with closures reported from as far as Northern Ireland to Essex at the start of this week.

Sir Keir Starmer held an urgent Cobra meeting on Monday in Downing Street to discuss the ongoing Iran war crisis but it had been thought the Americans would push to prise open the Strait. But now the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports that Trump, 79, has decided he is happy to leave the crucial Hormuz Strait closed for now with a view to opening it at a later date.

The reported decision is likely to spook already twitchy markets even further. Australia, south east Asian countries and India and Pakistan have already reported problems caused by the closure.

According to the WSJ, the President is said to have decided that the US should achieve its main goals of destroying Iran’s navy and its missile stocks. It would then attempt to pressure Tehran diplomatically to allow the free flow of trade to resume.

But if that fails, according to GB News, European and Gulf allies would then face American pressure to take the lead on reopening the strait.

The decision to keep the Strait open appears to be a major change of plan by Washington.

Posting on his TruthSocial platform on Monday, President Trump had previously said: “If the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘open for business’, we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their electric generating plants, oil wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinisation plants), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched’.”

Spot prices of Brent crude, the international standard, hovered around $107 a barrel in early trading, up more than 45% since the war started Feb. 28 when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran.

Iran’s stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway leading our of Persian Gulf through which a fifth of the world’s oil is transported during peacetime, has driven up global oil prices, as have its attacks on Gulf regional energy infrastructure

In response to growing Gulf Arab anger, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted Tuesday that Tehran is only targeting US forces. Several states have been encouraging Washington to continue the war until Iran’s military capabilities are destroyed.

“Our operations are aimed at enemy aggressors who have no respect for Arabs or Iranians, nor can provide any security,” Araghchi wrote on X.

“High time to eject US forces.”

Despite these words, attacks on civilian targets continued as an Iranian drone hit a Kuwaiti oil tanker in Dubai waters, sparking a blaze that was later put out, the Dubai Media Office said.