What the naval blockade of Iran might look like

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What the naval blockade of Iran might look like Washington: The US naval blockade of Iran that began on Monday (US time) has little precedent in recent decades, and the military has offered few details on how it might carry out the operation. But previous operations in the Middle East may offer some clues to what the blockade could look like in practice. The Navy has a track record of monitoring the movements of merchant ships and taking them over, whether they want to be boarded or not. What has the military said? On Sunday, US President Donald Trump said he was ordering a blockade of Iran and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway separating the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman that is a transit point for much of the world’s oil. On Monday (US time), US Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, appeared to narrow the scope, saying it would prevent merchant ships from travelling to or from Iranian ports. An advisory issued to mariners in the region said details were “in development”. Central Command said the blockade would be “enforced impartially against vessels of all nations” and would apply to Iranian ports on both sides of the strait. When asked how the blockade would work in practice, Central Command pointed to a news release announcing the blockade, as well as an advisory issued by the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations organisation, which is administered by the British Royal Navy. Neither document says what would happen to merchant ships that try to run through the blockade. How would the US monitor and intercept ships? Navy destroyers could monitor Iranian ports with their radars, tracking the ships coming in and out of each, but that would require a large commitment of US warships to cover Iran’s long southern coast. Central Command could instead opt to keep a contingent of destroyers on either side of the Strait of Hormuz to board ships and use surveillance drones to monitor the ports instead. Once a vessel has been identified as a “contact of interest”, a destroyer could be dispatched to intercept it. After closing the distance between them and coming within visual range, the destroyer would most likely hail the vessel over maritime VHF radio, querying it according to a script that asks for information such as the ship’s destination, its last port of call, what kind of cargo it is carrying and the number of crew members aboard. The warship could then ask the vessel to accept a “boarding party” of sailors to inspect it. Ideally, the vessel would answer the warship’s radio calls and agree to be boarded, adjusting its course and speed and lowering a rope ladder to make the boarding safer and easier. Or it could ignore the warship’s messages and try to make a run for it. What happens if the US tries to board a ship? A Navy boarding party could approach on a motorboat and use telescoping poles to hook a narrow caving ladder on the side of the target vessel. But the task becomes far more challenging and dangerous in rough seas, at night and when the target vessel is manoeuvring to foil the boarding. The best option, then, is to fly the boarding team over in a helicopter and slide down thick, braided lines called fast-ropes to the ship’s deck. If helicopters are available, and the boarding party has the right training, fast-roping aboard is much safer and can be done far more quickly than attempting a “hook and climb” from a motorboat. In recent memory, teams of Marines and Coast Guardsmen frequently fast-roped to board tankers in the Caribbean carrying Venezuelan oil. However, those tankers have cost the United States tens of millions of dollars to hold, and the Trump administration cannot legally sell their oil without a judge’s permission. Does the Navy have much experience with this in the Persian Gulf? Yes. More than a decade’s worth. After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the United Nations established a system allowing Iraq to export its oil so long as the proceeds from those sales benefited its citizens – often referred to as the “oil for food” program. Navy warships routinely boarded tankers trying to smuggle Iraqi oil out of the Persian Gulf until US president George W. Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The vast majority of those boardings were “compliant” – Navy parlance for when the boarded vessel co-operates. Small teams of US sailors would be placed on tankers found to be smuggling Iraqi oil, and they would sail the ship to holding areas in the Gulf, code-named for professional baseball stadiums, such as Fenway and Comiskey, where the tanker would be anchored. The ships would eventually go to a port in the Gulf where the host nation would sell the oil as payment for taking responsibility for the vessel and its crew. The tankers would be sold at auction, often purchased by the same holding company that owned the ship before. It was a bit of a revolving door. Has the Navy blockaded a country before? Yes. But not in the Strait of Hormuz, and not at this scale for a long time. The last time the service tried to blockade all shipping to a nation was in October 1962, when president John F. Kennedy ordered a “quarantine” of Cuba during the crisis over the Soviet Union’s deployment of nuclear weapons to the island nation. (“Quarantine” and “blockade” appear on different pages of the dictionary, but when applied to stopping shipping, they have the same meaning. Under international law, a naval blockade of a nation is an act of war.) More recently, the Trump administration has carried out what it has sometimes called blockades of Venezuela and Cuba, but those targeted were oil shipments and did not approach the totality of the blockade on Iran. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.

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John IsmayBy John Ismay

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High oil prices drive a surge in Chinese electric vehicle sales, but charging networks lag behind

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High oil prices drive a surge in Chinese electric vehicle sales, but charging networks lag behind The war in Iran has helped reshape the global electric vehicle market, giving Chinese automakers an opening across the developing world as fuel prices surge The war in Iran has helped reshape the global electric vehicle market, giving Chinese automakers an opening across the developing world as soaring fuel prices push drivers towards electric vehicles, even as charging infrastructure lags behind a wave of imports.

The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz disrupted shipping of about a fifth of the world’s crude oil and liquified natural gas, first hitting Asia — the main destination for the fuels — followed by Africa. This shock accelerated a trend that was already spreading across the developing world.

In April, global exports of Chinese EVs hit a record $9.4 billion, according to an analysis by think tank Ember of Chinese customs data. Shipments surged to countries such as Australia, Brazil and regions like Southeast Asia and East Africa. China exported about 435,000 passenger EVs and plug-in hybrids in May, more than double from a year earlier, according to the Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

As fuel costs rise, more drivers are switching to EVs to save money, while governments from Laos to Ethiopia are embracing electrification to curb oil imports and reduce costs of fuel subsidies. But faster EV adoption is outpacing the expansion of charging networks.

Governments and state-owned utilities in Africa are taking a leading role in building them — a model analysts say could help other emerging markets, like Asia, speed the shift away from fossil fuels. When a nation lacks sufficient charging infrastructure and EV fleet size, it is a “classic chicken-and-egg problem” regarding what comes first, said Paul Gong, head of UBS bank’s China automotive industry research.

“At that stage, government support for infrastructure could help accelerate adoption,” he said. Fuel shock drives EV use in Asia and Africa Across the developing world, drivers are looking beyond the gas pump. In Southeast Asia, imports of Chinese EVs have surged in Thailand, Laos and the Philippines.

In May, Laos banned the import of fuel-powered vehicles for the rest of 2026 to cut oil import costs and encourage the EV shift. Africa imported around 44,000 Chinese EVs in 2025, a 130% jump from the year before, according to Chinese Commerce Ministry data.

Across Asia and Africa, transport is one of the largest household expenses. Limited public transit, long commutes and a reliance on private vehicles make families vulnerable to volatile fuel prices. In South Africa, transportation accounts for nearly a fifth of household spending, according to a 2024 study by Stellenbosch University in South Africa's Western Cape province.

So, as fuel prices surge, global interest in EVs has been growing, said Mark Wakefield, with the consultancy AlixPartners. One in four new cars sold worldwide last year were electric, according to the International Energy Agency. Global electric car sales are expected to grow further in 2026 and reach 23 million, making up nearly 30% of all cars sold worldwide, according to the IEA’s latest EV outlook.

“In the next five years, we will accelerate (our) overseas expansion,” said Jerry Gan, CEO of Geely Auto, one of China's biggest automakers, at a company event in March as the auto group makes inroad into regions like Southeast Asia including selling EVs.

Chinese automakers supplied around 60% of electric cars sold globally, the IEA said. They have also been targeting Europe, Africa and Latin America. In Vietnam, automaker VinFast also logged stronger sales. Demand from Southeast Asia helped drive a 42% year-on-year increase in the company's January-March quarterly revenue.

On most mornings, Nguyen Thien Bao threads his VinFast electric motorbike through the jammed traffic of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi — ferrying passengers and deliveries. The EV bike has sharply cut his expenses as fuel prices rise. “Before, so much of my income went into fuel,” he said.

“Now, I can actually save some money.” Charging stations aren't keeping up But while EV imports are booming, charging infrastructure is still lagging even as installations have accelerated. Thailand, for instance, has around 4,600 public charging locations to serve more than 424,000 battery EVs and plug-in hybrids, according to the Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand — around one for every 92 vehicles.

The country currently has roughly 12,000 public chargers, the IEA said. Chitsanupong Nuamnorm's solution is to keep his gasoline-fueled Mazda 2 for weekend trips, although the Chinese-made MG4 EV he bought on Feb. 27 — the day before the Iran war began — is saving him a lot of money.

Yutthana Samranwong, a 54-year-old driver in Thailand’s northern Phitsanulok province, says booking online for public charging ports to keep his MG4 EV running is a gamble. “It's a bit of a headache,” said Samranwong, who sometimes works with the Grab ride-hailing and delivery service.

In Bangkok, strained charging networks are prompting some drivers to consider returning to fuel-powered cars. In Malaysia, public fast chargers were up more than 70% in 2025, according to the IEA, after the government rolled out incentives to including a tax break for operators of charging points that meet certain investment criteria.

Indonesia has more than 4,500 public charging stations set up the state-owned power utility PLN, the IEA said. Ethiopia, which has banned non-EV imports, had only around a dozen charging stations as of mid-2025, and the government estimates it needs more than 1,170 stations to meet rising demand.

In the capital Addis Ababa, 40 stations are under construction, according to the state electricity utility. “In developing markets, affordability can accelerate the shift, but the pace of adoption will still depend heavily on infrastructure, power reliability and use case,” said Chris Liu, with the technology research and advisory group Omdia.

State utilities take the wheel to build charging stations In Indonesia, more than 4,500 public chargers have been deployed by its state-owned power utility PLN, the IEA said. African countries also are increasingly turning to state-owned utilities to build EV charging networks, betting public investment can solve one of the biggest obstacles to electric vehicle adoption.

“Utilities are recognizing that electric mobility will become a meaningful source of future electricity demand,” said Ndia Magadagela, co-founder and CEO of Everlectric, a South African commercial EV leasing company. There are around 2,000 public EV charging stations in Africa, with South Africa accounting for the largest share.

State-controlled utility Kenya Power plans to build 44 charging stations within the next year. But building networks of charging stations is difficult in developing markets, according to Omidia's Liu, who said grid connections and maintenance are key issues.

While BYD, for example, is expanding its ultrafast EV charging network in places like Europe, large Chinese automakers typically may have relatively little incentive to build networks outside China, he said. State-owned utilities, therefore, can play a larger role in this, according to Liu, since they are closely tied to a country’s grid planning, electricity pricing and distribution capacity.

“You need charging infrastructure to support an even larger fleet size,” said Gong, the auto analyst from UBS. ___ Olingo reported from Nairobi, Kenya, and Delgado reported from Bangkok. Associated Press writer Aniruddha Ghosal contributed to this report.

___ The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.

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