Beirut6:23 p.m. March 27
Tel Aviv7:23 p.m. March 27
Tehran7:53 p.m. March 27
Iran War Live Updates: Tehran Moves to Assert Its Control Over Strait of Hormuz
Iran said it had turned back three ships a day after President Trump extended a deadline for Tehran to reopen the critical waterway. Diplomats from the Group of 7 nations were discussing the security of the shipping lane.
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Amit Elkayam for The New York Times
- Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
- Hussein Malla/Associated Press
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- David Guttenfelder/The New York Times
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
- Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The New York Times
- Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
- Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
Iran moved to assert its control over the Strait of Hormuz on Friday, saying it had warned three ships not to pass through, a day after President Trump claimed progress in peace efforts as he extended a U.S. deadline for Tehran to open the waterway.
Two of the ships that were turned back are Chinese-owned, according to MarineTraffic, a ship tracking database, which showed that they had turned around. They are owned by COSCO, a shipping line with links to the Chinese government.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in a message carried by state media, identified the ships, including the third vessel, Lotus Rising, a bulk carrier owned by Lotus Ocean Shipping, a Hong Kong company.
It was not clear whether the Guards knew that the ships were Chinese- or Hong Kong-owned when they were warned. Iran told the U.N. International Maritime Organization this week that “nonhostile” ships may pass safely through the strait. For much of the war, Iran has allowed some friendly countries, including China, to secure safe passage of their ships through the strait.
The war continued unabated on Friday, with strikes on industrial and nuclear sites in Iran, though it was not clear whether the targets were hit by Israeli or U.S. forces, or both. Iranian media reported attacks on a uranium processing plant, a nuclear research facility, two steel plants and another industrial complex.
In Lebanon, the Israeli military issued fresh evacuation orders for Beirut’s densely populated southern outskirts, a Hezbollah stronghold, indicating that airstrikes were imminent.
Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz has choked oil supplies and roiled economies around the world. Mr. Trump has threatened Iran with attacks on its power plants if it did not fully reopen the strait; he has extended his deadline twice and it is now April 6.
Top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations were meeting in France on Friday and were expected to discuss efforts to stop the war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz, normally a conduit for a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies. Before traveling to France, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated Mr. Trump’s message urging other countries to send warships to help ward off Iranian attacks in the strait.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump asserted Thursday that peace talks were “going very well,” while Iran has publicly denied that it is negotiating with the United States.
The president said on Thursday that the U.S. military was striking Iranian targets hard and “blowing them away, unimpeded.” But Defense Department officials have offered little information on U.S. operations and are not expected to give a news conference until at least Monday, which would be 11 days since the most recent news conference.
Here’s what else we’re covering:
.
Food supply: The effects of the war on fertilizer supplies are worsening by the day, and price increases for farmers are threatening to lead to food insecurity in some parts of the world. Read more ›
Lebanon: More than one million people have been displaced in Lebanon during Israel’s war on Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militia, and many have fled to the capital, Beirut, according to the country’s health ministry. Over 100,000 people are relying on shelters in schools and other public buildings, according to the United Nations, as Israel plans to expand its occupation of southern Lebanon. Read more ›
Death tolls: The Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported that more than 1,492 civilians have been killed in Iran, out of more than 3,300 total deaths. More than 1,110 people in Lebanon have been killed, the health ministry there said on Thursday. More than 50 people have been killed in Gulf countries and at least 16 in Iranian attacks on Israel, officials said. The American death toll stands at 13 service members.
The Defense Department did not put forward a request for funding for the war in Iran during a meeting between Republicans on the House Budget Committee and officials at the Pentagon, a lawmaker said. Representative Jodey Arrington of Texas, the chairman of the panel, said in an interview on Friday that he expects to hear more details soon from the White House and to keep discussing supplemental funding for the war during the coming two-week congressional recess. Asked if he has an understanding of the day-to-day cost of the war, Arrington said: “I wish I did. I know it exists.”
The Israeli military has released fresh evacuation orders for Beirut’s southern outskirts, indicating that airstrikes are imminent. The densely populated area, a Hezbollah stronghold, has largely been emptied in recent weeks, but many residents have been returning intermittently to check on their homes or collect belongings.
The roar of Israeli fighter jets can now be heard in the skies above the Lebanese capital, Beirut, putting residents on alert after days of relative calm. Farther south along the border, Israeli ground forces continue their invasion, though for now troops have only advanced a few miles into Lebanese territory. Israel’s defense minister said this week that Israel intends to “control” southern Lebanon up to the Litani River, an area larger than New York City and twice the size of Gaza. The area encompasses nearly 10 percent of Lebanon’s total land mass.
One of the biggest economic casualties of the U.S.-led war in Iran has been the global fertilizer supply.
Shipments of it have piled up on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. In India, Algeria and Slovakia, fertilizer plants have shut down or slowed their output because of rising natural gas prices. China has restricted fertilizer exports. Australian wheat farmers are planting less, and corn and soy farmers in the United States are begging President Trump for relief.
Much of the concern about economic disruptions stemming from the Iran conflict has centered on the higher price of oil and natural gas. But the cascading effects of the conflict on fertilizer supplies are growing worse by the day, raising prices for farmers globally and threatening to lead to food insecurity in some parts of the world.
Most fertilizer is made using natural gas. As a result, the Middle East is a key global producer of the commodity, second only to Russia. Nearly a third of the world’s fertilizer is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz, and many other countries that produce their own fertilizer, like Egypt and Thailand, often do so using natural gas from the Middle East.
Deepika Thapliyal, a fertilizer specialist at Independent Commodity Intelligence Services, a market information provider, said that the disappearance of such a large portion of the world’s supply had led to a “very big jump” in fertilizer prices. That was leading to ramifications globally, she said, with major agricultural producers like India facing potential shortages.
The consequences have been far-reaching, impacting farmers in countries including the United States and Brazil who rely on imported fertilizer. Ms. Thapliyal said those farmers are likely to face higher prices and could be forced to pass those on to their customers. Adding to the pressure: Russia, another major fertilizer producer, was being hampered from stepping in because of drone strikes on its factories and ports from its own yearslong war with Ukraine.
“It’s inevitable that food prices will go up,” she said.
The World Trade Organization, in a report last week, also warned about the risks to the food supplies of many countries. Persian Gulf states could also face food shortages, given their high dependence on imports for products like rice, corn, soybeans and vegetable oil, the W.T.O. said.
In her opening remarks at a W.T.O. conference in Cameroon on Thursday, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the organization’s director-general, said that the conflict had “destabilized trade in energy, fertilizer and food” at a time when governments were already struggling with geopolitical and trade tensions as well as climate pressures.
“It is no secret that the world trading system is experiencing the worst disruptions in the past 80 years,” she said.
While Mr. Trump has suggested that the Iran conflict will come to a quick end, that seems highly unclear. On Thursday, Mr. Trump said that Iran had promised to let eight oil tankers pass through the Strait as a “show of sincerity,” and that two additional boats had been let through as well.
But the day before, Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a maritime information service, said in a briefing that there had been only a handful of transits in recent days, and most of the ships moving oil and gas were connected to a “shadow fleet” that helps move sanctioned oil.
The limited traffic that was flowing through the Strait was sailing exclusively through a corridor controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, requiring special clearance codes and an Iranian escort service, Lloyd’s List said.
Windward, a maritime intelligence firm, said on Thursday that transit through the Strait was expanding, but only within a controlled system with “selective access.”
The blockages in trade are also threatening supply shortages for other key industries that depend on the Middle East.
That includes aluminum, which is used by makers of cars, airplanes and many other products, and helium, which is needed to make semiconductors. The United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia all export aluminum, the production of which is energy-intensive, while Qatar is also a significant supplier of helium.
Analysts at Blue Yonder, a supply chain company, said that the disruptions in the region had led to delays in shipments of medications and medical supplies from India and of semiconductors and batteries from other parts of Asia, along with other goods. The higher price of oil and gas was also impacting shipping, aviation, agriculture and manufacturing, they said.
“We’re seeing a significant disruption in the flow of energy, chemical and other goods, higher freight and insurance costs, and spiraling delays across supply chains,” said Nathan Moffitt, a corporate vice president at Blue Yonder.
Suketu Gandhi, a partner at Kearney, a management consultancy, said that he also expected higher transport costs from the conflict to spill through into prices of goods. Rerouting vessels from the Middle East around the Cape of Good Hope at Africa’s southern tip had raised some shipping costs 30 percent to 70 percent in the near term, he said, while higher energy costs would also push up the price of commercial shipping contracts.
But of all the economic disruptions caused by the war, the effect on fertilizer could be the most economically far-reaching, given knock-on effects for the global food supply.
A research note published this week by Alpine Macro, an investment research firm, said that large parts of Asia were most exposed to the supply shortages, particularly India and Thailand. Europe was also vulnerable. In the United States, where farmers are entering the spring planting season, the disruptions are also pushing up prices. The price of urea rose by 50 percent in the first few weeks of the conflict, it said, and ammonia’s price rose by 20 percent. Both are common fertilizers.
The problem is exacerbated by the fact that other major fertilizer exporters are unable to rapidly scale up their shipments to offset losses in the Middle East, in part because the conflict has also raised the price of natural gas, Alpine Macro said.
Global agriculture saw a similar shock four years ago, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted the flow of oil, gas and fertilizer. American and European sanctions on Russia and Belarus caused prices of both energy goods and fertilizers to spike, helping to push up global food costs.
But that conflict had a more immediate effect on food prices, because it also shut down agricultural production in Ukraine, a major source of wheat, corn and sunflower oil. Shuttered ports in the Black Sea were not able carry Ukrainian wheat to markets in Africa and the Middle East, and many Ukrainian fields lay fallow.
So far, fertilizer prices have yet to climb back to the highs they hit in 2021 and 2022, but it remains to be seen how long the current disruptions last.
Many American farmers, who had already seen their margins squeezed by tariff shocks and labor shortages, have purchased fertilizer for the season, but those who haven’t may be hit with higher prices. The United States is a major fertilizer producer globally, but it still imports more fertilizer than it exports, including from Canada, Russia and Qatar.
In an effort to help alleviate the price increases, the Trump administration has lifted sanctions on fertilizer sales from Belarus and Venezuela. Farming groups have been pushing for more, including the revocation of duties on phosphate fertilizer from Morocco and Russia.
Mr. Trump, who is speaking to American farmers at the White House on Friday, is expected to announce some type of financial support.
Chris Abbott, the chief executive of Pivot Bio, a Minnesota-based maker of agricultural products that increase nitrogen in soil, said his company was increasing its production to provide a domestic source of nitrogen.
He said that prices were already rising quickly at a time when overall farm commodity prices were lagging, putting the ratio of fertilizer to grain prices at a level not seen in generations.
“This is hitting at an already difficult time,” he said.
Alan Rappeport contributed reporting.
Iran moved to assert its control over the Strait of Hormuz on Friday. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps said that it had warned three container ships, including two that are owned by a Chinese company, not to go through the strait. The message, carried by Iran state media, included purported images of tracking data showing three ships being turned around. Two of the ships are owned by the Chinese company COSCO. Marine Traffic also shows that the two Chinese-owned ships, the CSCL Indian Ocean and CSCL Arctic Ocean, had turned around.
U.S.-Israeli airstrikes damaged two major steel plants in Iran on Friday, Iran’s state broadcaster reported. The attack on the Mobarakeh Steel plant, in the central city of Isfahan, targeted an electrical substation and a production line, the state broadcaster reported, while the attack on the Khuzestan Steel plant, in the western city of Ahvaz, targeted storage sheds. The U.S. and Israeli militaries did not immediately comment on the reported strikes. Mobarakeh Steel was sanctioned in 2018 by the U.S. Treasury, which said the company was part of a financial empire supporting the Basij, the paramilitary force that answers to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Oil prices rose and stocks fell on Friday morning, despite President Trump’s decision to back away from an imminent deadline to begin attacking Iran’s power grid. The S&P 500 dropped roughly 0.5 percent, on course for its fifth straight week of losses — the longest weekly losing streak for the index in roughly four years. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose more than 2 percent to around $111 per barrel.
Hundreds of transport workers in the Philippines went on strike for a second straight day on Friday to protest a surge in fuel prices, days after the country’s president declared a national energy emergency stemming from the war in the Middle East.
Protesters in Manila, the capital, said that diesel prices had doubled since the war started on Feb. 28 and demanded that the government of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. take action to reduce fuel prices, increase transport fares and raise wages.
The strike, which included drivers of popular passenger vehicles known as jeepneys, forced the government to deploy special buses to transport thousands of stranded residents. The government recently began handing out the equivalent of $84 each to tens of thousands of motorized tricycle and jeepney drivers around the capital.
The protests were smaller than some previous labor actions in the Philippines, suggesting that parts of the public recognize that the soaring fuel costs are largely the result of a war thousands of miles away. But striking workers said that the rising prices were painful.
Jaime Ricafrente, 72, a jeepney driver for four decades, said that he broke down in tears on Friday after his name was left off a list of drivers eligible for the government’s emergency subsidy.
“I felt hopeless, with no one to turn to,” he said.
Mr. Ricafrente said that he later received private aid after an appeal for help on the local radio, and that he would spend that money on milk for his grandchild, who lives with him and his wife.
On Friday, Mr. Marcos said that the government was seeking alternative sources of crude oil outside of the Middle East. A shipment of 700,000 barrels of Russian crude arrived on Thursday, and the Marcos administration said that it had enough to last through June.
But it wasn’t immediately clear how soon that would have an effect on fuel prices. Ruelle Roxas Jr., a 53-year-old driver and father of six, said that he might look for work at construction sites.
“I don’t have enough to pay for diesel, which has doubled in price,” he said.
The energy crisis has also roiled domestic politics. The left-leaning political group Bayan, which supported the transport workers’ strike, called for sustained demonstrations against the Marcos administration’s handling of the crisis. Raymond Palatino, the group’s secretary general, said that poorer Filipinos bore the heaviest burden.
“Most Filipinos are barely surviving due to soaring prices and the general cost-of-living crisis,” he said.
Ukraine has signed a defense cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday, laying the groundwork for future contracts in which Ukrainian companies could help the kingdom with its air defenses.
“We have reached an important arrangement,” Mr. Zelensky said on social media, adding that Ukraine was ready for long-term cooperation and hoped to become a force in global defense contracting.
The signing took place before a meeting on Friday between Mr. Zelensky and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the de facto Saudi ruler. The leaders met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to discuss the escalating tensions in the Middle East and the war in Ukraine.
For years, Ukraine has been refining methods for combating Iranian-designed Shahed drones, which Russia launches into the country by the thousands each month. After the United States and Israel began attacking Iran late last month, the Iranian armed forces retaliated by firing these drones at U.S. allies in the region, including Saudi Arabia.
To defend against the drones, Middle Eastern countries used costly interceptor missiles. But it became clear that even the most advanced and expensive air defense systems would struggle, over time, to counter large volumes of far cheaper drones.
The Iran conflict has given Ukraine an opportunity to showcase its battle-tested technology and present itself as a valuable partner as countries look to shore up their defenses. A number of Ukrainian companies are pursuing deals with Middle Eastern countries, particularly for interceptor drones.
That these drones can be remotely piloted has become a central selling point. Officials say that Ukrainian companies would not just sell the hardware but also provide software updates and skilled operators who would work from Ukraine.
Ukrainian military experts have been in Saudi Arabia for the past week consulting on air defense. Mr. Zelensky has said Ukraine would like to explore trades with Middle Eastern nations for advanced air-defense systems that the country needs itself.
As President Trump claimed progress in talks with Iran, Israeli attacks in Iran continued into Friday. Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, indicated in a statement Friday that the country’s offensive would only intensify.
Missile launches toward Israel appear to have intensified. The Israeli military had said that it had detected at least 10 volleys throughout the day on Thursday and four more so far on Friday.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told the U.N. Human Rights Council on Friday the Feb. 28 U.S. strike on an elementary school in southern Iran that killed dozens of children was not a mistake, but a “calculated” assault. “They are targeting civilians and civilian infrastructures with no regard for laws of war and basic principles of humanity and civility,” Araghchi said by video to a session of the council focusing on the strike.
The New York Times reported this month that a preliminary U.S. investigation had determined that the strike was the result of a targeting mistake. The school building was formerly part of an adjacent Iranian military base that U.S. forces were striking. U.S. officials emphasized that the findings were preliminary and that questions remained about why the outdated information had not been double-checked. The investigation is ongoing.
The war in Iran is set to dominate a meeting of top diplomats from the Group of 7 nations on Friday morning in France, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio was expected to press European and Asian allies to help reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
An agenda provided by France’s foreign ministry, which is hosting the meeting in the town of Vaux-de-Cernay, near Paris, said the group would discuss efforts to stop the war, end Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile development, and reopen maritime trade routes.
Many of the foreign ministers whom Mr. Rubio will meet are from countries that have rebuffed President Trump’s call to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf waterway traversed by a fifth of the world’s oil shipments. In addition to the United States, the Group of 7 comprises Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Britain.
Iran’s efforts to choke off the strait have driven up global energy costs, especially affecting Asia, which buys most of the fuel produced in the Gulf.
“Very little of our energy comes from the Strait of Hormuz,” Mr. Rubio said on Thursday as he departed for France. “It’s the world that has a great interest in that, so they should step up and deal with it.”
Other than Japan, the rest of the Group of 7 nations also belong to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which the Trump administration has criticized for not helping the United States with its war in Iran.
“There was a couple of leaders in Europe who said that this was not Europe’s war,” Mr. Rubio said. “Well, Ukraine is not America’s war, and yet we’ve contributed more to that fight than any other country in the world.”
European and Asian countries counter that Mr. Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel started the war in Iran without consulting them. Europe also argues that NATO is a defensive alliance that does not traditionally involve itself in the Middle East.
European members of the Group of 7 are eager to keep support for Ukraine on the agenda. The French foreign ministry said the meeting would attempt to step up pressure on Russia’s shadow fleet, which has transported sanctioned goods like oil. Earlier this month the Trump administration paused sanctions on some Russian oil in an effort ease the energy crunch.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said as she arrived at the meeting on Thursday that European countries wanted an off-ramp to the war in Iran for Ukraine’s sake.
“This oil price hike is giving Russia the possibility to fund this war again, which is really not good for the Ukrainians,” she said.
Kuwait’s public works ministry said Mubarak al-Kabeer Port was attacked by drones and missiles on Friday. Initial reports said there was material damage but no injuries, according to the ministry.
Earlier on Friday, the Kuwait Ports Authority said that Shuwaikh Port was struck by a “hostile drone.”
One businessman, who lives in Tehran and spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid reprisal from the government, said he could hear the sound of jets and bombing on Thursday night and into early Friday morning. The booms of explosions mixed with the sound of thunder from a storm made it an especially frightening night, he said.
The Israeli military said Friday that it had struck targets across Tehran and western Iran overnight, including sites involved in the production of ballistic missiles. It also said that it had stuck Iran’s “primary facility for the production of missiles and sea mines” in the city of Yazd, without specifying when those strikes took place.
Oil prices rose on Friday despite President Trump’s decision to back away from an imminent deadline to begin attacking Iran’s power grid. Global stock markets mostly moved lower.
On Thursday, after oil jumped to its highest level this week and the S&P 500 had its biggest daily decline since January, Mr. Trump said he would extend the deadline for negotiations with Iran by 10 days. He has claimed in recent days that he was making progress to end the Middle East war, which has choked critical supplies of energy, despite Iranian officials rebuffing those claims.
Oil rises.
Price of Brent Crude Oil
The price of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, rose to about $111 on Friday. It jumped roughly 5.7 percent, to $108.01, on Thursday.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, was just under $97 a barrel. On Thursday, it settled at $94.48.
Investors and analysts have been focused on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that is a vital trading route for oil and natural gas that normally carries as much as one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.
Price of Brent Crude Oil
Stocks fall.
The S&P 500 fell at the start of trading on Friday in the United States. The index moved 0.5 percent lower, on course for a drop of around 1 percent for the week.
The index is on course for its fifth-straight week of losses for the first time in four years. The war also continues to pressure bond yields, raising concerns over housing affordability and inflation generally.
In Europe, stocks were slightly lower. The Stoxx 600, a Pan-European index, fell more than 1 percent. The FTSE 100 in London slipped 0.5 percent.
In Asia, stocks also mostly fell. South Korea’s and Taiwan’s fell about 0.5 percent. The Nikkei 225 in Japan dropped 0.4 percent. Stocks in Hong Kong and China closed about 0.5 percent higher.
S&P 500
Gasoline prices stayed flat.
U.S. gas prices ticked down less than a penny on Friday to remain around a national average of $3.98 a gallon, according to the AAA motor club. It was the first day the price did not increase since the war began, leaving the cost for drivers up 34 percent in that period.
Diesel prices have increased even more quickly, rising less than a penny to $5.38, up 43 percent since the start of the war.
Six people were killed in a strike that damaged three homes in Iran’s Qom province, around 80 miles south of Tehran, the Fars news agency said on Friday. Morteza Haydari, an official at the Qom governor’s office, described the strike as a U.S.-Israeli attack, according to the report by Fars, which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.
The Israeli military said it had completed a “wide-scale wave of strikes” targeting government infrastructure in Tehran early on Friday morning.
Earlier, Press TV, an Iranian state news agency, said Iran had launched strikes at Israel.
Israelis were warned to shelter in place and soon after were released. There were no casualties reported.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will not hold a news conference this week, the Pentagon said on Thursday. That means it will be Monday at the earliest until the two leaders take questions from reporters on the state of the Iran war — at least 11 days since their last news conference on March 19.
Kingsley Wilson, the Pentagon press secretary, said in an email that Hegseth had provided updates at several public events with President Trump this week. And Adm. Brad Cooper, the head of U.S. Central Command, this week posted two short videotaped operational updates. But none of those events offered reporters an opportunity to question Hegseth or the admiral.
A senior Republican senator who has harshly criticized the Trump administration for keeping Congress in the dark on combat operations in Iran has begun drafting legislation that would force lawmakers to vote for the first time on whether to authorize the war.
Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is working with a group of senators on a formal authorization for the use of military force against Iran, but has yet to introduce the resolution, a spokesman confirmed on Thursday. Such a measure would have to receive a swift vote in both chambers of Congress and would be all but certain to generate a politically charged debate just months before the midterm elections on a war that polls show is unpopular.
Ms. Murkowski described the move on Thursday as an act of desperation to try to put some parameters around the operation as the Trump administration refuses to provide answers to Congress about its objectives, cost and timeline, and has boxed lawmakers out of its decision-making on the conflict.
The development, reported earlier by Bloomberg Government, comes as Republicans in Congress have grown increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration’s handling of the war nearly a month into the conflict. Ms. Murkowski was one of the first Republicans to criticize the administration for not providing more details about the possible need for ground troops and the total cost or expected timeline of the war.
“We should have a better handle on where we’re going with this,” she said in a recent interview.
“This president came into office saying he was going to be the peace president,” Ms. Murkowski added. “How many times has he said, ‘We don’t like these long wars, these never-ending wars?’ People are asking me, ‘Is that what we’re moving into?’ And I can’t honestly tell them the answer, because I don’t know that answer.”
It is unclear when Ms. Murkowski might introduce the measure. And its fate would be highly uncertain. Even some Republicans who have staunchly supported the offensive against Iran may be reluctant to vote in favor of going to war, something Congress has not done since 2002 when it authorized the use of military force against Iraq.
Under the 1973 War Powers Act, such authorizations must be considered under expedited procedures and voted on within days of being filed. Congress is scheduled to depart for a two-week recess beginning on Friday, so any vote would likely come after that.
Should the Senate act, the House would be required to schedule a vote on the authorization soon afterward. Both chambers would be legally required to vote on such an authorization well before the 60-day mark of the conflict in Iran.
A moderate, Ms. Murkowski was the first Republican senator to call for senior members of the president’s cabinet to testify under oath on the war, even as the majority of her colleagues echoed the rationale the administration offered for the conflict and said they did not see a need for information to be shared outside classified briefings.
She voted three times in opposition to Democrat-led resolutions that would have forced Mr. Trump to withdraw U.S. forces from hostilities against Iran unless Congress voted to authorize the war. But she voted in support of a similar resolution earlier in the year that aimed to curb the president’s military moves against Venezuela.
Since the start of the war, Republicans have been nearly united in voting to block repeated Democratic efforts to curb Mr. Trump’s authority to carry out the campaign in Iran, even as some have begun to voice unease about how the conflict began and the administration’s shifting objectives.
Those votes, however, have largely been aimed at preventing limits on the president rather than explicitly endorsing the war. An authorization for the use of military force would pose a far more direct question, forcing lawmakers to go on record affirming the campaign and granting the president explicit permission to continue it.
“I’m glad to see a Republican senator taking this war seriously and understanding the constitutional obligation for them to come to Congress,” Senator Cory Booker, Democrat of New Jersey, said on Thursday. Senate Republicans last week blocked his resolution to terminate the war until Mr. Trump won authorization for it.
A month into its war with the United States and Israel, Iran is still using its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz to its advantage.
Fearing Iranian attacks, ship operators stopped sending their vessels through the strait. That has led to a sharp reduction in supplies of energy products — and a spike in oil and gas prices. The shortages have roiled the economies of many countries, especially those in Asia.
In recent days, Tehran has projected itself as the controller of the waterway, saying it will let ships from certain countries go through the strait, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies travels in normal times. Iran has allowed the passage of a small number of ships, most apparently headed for Asia, but it has continued to threaten vessels linked to Israel, the United States and its allies.
Ship traffic through the strait is still at historically low levels. It is estimated that nearly 3,000 vessels are waiting nearby to pass through the strait, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence. Typically, roughly 120 ships pass through it each day.
On Thursday, President Trump said Iran had said it was going to let eight ships pass as a show of sincerity ahead of talks with the United States. Efforts to mediate a cease-fire have so far not been successful.
Every day tankers sit idle, the greater the stress on the global economy. And Iran’s policy of allowing a small number of approved vessels to transit the strait will not alleviate the pressures, shipping and energy analysts said.
“We have not yet seen a meaningful ramp-up,” said Ana Subasic, a trade risk analyst at Kpler, a maritime data firm. In the seven days through Wednesday, 28 vessels had made it through the narrow waterway, according to data from MarineTraffic, a division of Kpler. That number, which includes vessels trying to avoid detection, was up from 20 ships in the seven days through March 18.
How many vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz this month
Kpler says 18 ships in the Middle East have been attacked since the start of the war. Right now, there is not enough certainty to risk a passage, ship operators say.
“We’re looking for some kind of reassurances that the traffic can safely resume through the Strait of Hormuz,” said Jan Rindbo, the head of Norden, a Danish tanker company with seven vessels stuck in the Persian Gulf. “I think those signals are not yet there.”
In a letter circulated on Tuesday to members of the United Nations International Maritime Organization, Iran said that it would allow nonhostile vessels to go through the strait. It defined such vessels as those that “neither participate in nor support acts of aggression against Iran.” The definition excluded ships belonging to the United States or Israel.
Iranian officials had declared the strait open to certain ships before the letter.
Iran’s statements are “likely to encourage those states most exposed to shipping disruption to seek alternative mechanisms directly with Iran while the conflict is ongoing,” said Jack Kennedy, head of Middle East country risk at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
But while some shipowners may decide to take Iran up on its offer, many others will not because they can’t be certain their vessels won’t be targeted, analysts said. Iran may unilaterally determine that a ship has links to Israel or the United States and attack it.
“Because it is tricky to define ‘nonhostile’ vessels, I don’t expect companies to immediately start sending ships through the strait,” Noam Raydan, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said in an email.
Another deterrent, she said, was Iran’s requirement that ships get permits, and that they coordinate with the country’s maritime authority. In normal times, vessels do not need Iran’s permission to go through the strait, which functions as an international waterway. “Iran is further complicating the shipping crisis,” Ms. Raydan said.
Shipping companies may also not want to pay fees to Iran. An Iranian parliamentary official recently said Iran was charging vessels $2 million to go through the strait.
The United States and Israel have been trying to destroy Iran’s navy and the weapons it can use to attack vessels. On Thursday, an Israeli airstrike killed an Iranian naval commander who played a pivotal role in shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, Israel’s defense minister said.
The United States has sent troops to the Middle East that in theory could be used to force a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz. But such operations might risk casualties and perhaps prompt Iran to attack more energy-producing facilities in the Gulf States.
Another complication for shipping is getting affordable insurance to cover the risks of sailing in a war zone. “War risk” insurance is available, but the cost of such coverage has soared, industry participants said.
Oscar Seikaly, chief executive of NSI Insurance Group, an insurance brokerage, said war coverage had leaped from almost nothing before the conflict to around 20 percent of the value of the ship or cargo. That was the cost of insuring a recent shipment of fertilizer from the Persian Gulf to Europe, he said.
Mr. Seikaly added that vessels would have to pay that rate each time they go through the Strait of Hormuz. He said statements from Iranian leaders saying the waterway was open to ships from countries not involved in war had prompted insurance companies to consider providing coverage during the war. “Otherwise, the insurance companies would have said, ‘No, I won’t do it for any cost,’” he said.
Shipping companies may be more likely to make the passage through the strait if they have a naval escort as protection. Three weeks ago, Mr. Trump said the United States might provide an escort. He later said other countries should assemble such a force.
The head of NATO said on Thursday that Europe needed time to “come together” to make sure the Strait of Hormuz is open for all countries.
Speaking in Brussels, Secretary General Mark Rutte said NATO members and other countries were planning how “to make sure that the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lanes, are open.” But he added that it was not clear when that might happen.
Shipping companies will feel most reassured by a peace or cease-fire agreement struck directly between the warring countries. But even then, it could take well over a month to get tankers moving at peacetime frequency, which means pressures in the oil and gas markets could remain for a while.
“Congestion levels will probably delay, or prevent, transits recovering to prewar levels for weeks,” Mr. Kennedy, the analyst, said.
Lynsey Chutel and Shirin Hakim contributed reporting.