Iran reiterates that Hormuz will remain closed unless the US accepts its terms of the MoU

Threats to close or restrict Hormuz are a recurring feature of US-Iran standoffs and have historically functioned as leverage rather than policy; an actual sustained closure has never occurred in comparable episodes, partly because a large share of Iran's own crude exports transits the same chokepoint and partly because such a move has consistently been treated as a casus belli inviting a multinational naval response. The conditional framing here, tied to terms of an MoU, places this in the negotiating-posture category rather than the imminent-action category, and past cycles of this kind have tended to escalate rhetorically before either side moves kinetically. The transmission channel that has mattered in prior scares is not the physical loss of barrels but freight: war-risk insurance premia, tanker rates on Gulf loadings, and refiners pulling forward crude purchases, all of which reprice faster than the crude curve itself and unwind quickly when rhetoric cools. The distinction worth drawing is between a declared closure and interference with individual tankers; the latter, seizures and harassment of specific vessels, is the pattern Iran has actually used on previous occasions, and it prices as a regional risk premium rather than a supply shock. The tells to follow are whether insurance markets and shipping behaviour shift in kind, whether any vessel-level incidents occur, and whether other Gulf producers or the US naval presence in the area adjust posture, since those have been the reliable markers separating posturing from escalation.