The market spent most of this week pricing in a reopening. Then Fars published the draft, and the trade unwound in about an hour. Brent settled Thursday at $82.49, up 3.8%. WTI closed at $77.29, up 2.8%. Friday morning added another 1.25% on Brent and 1.10% on WTI, putting the international benchmark near $83.50. That still leaves the week down roughly 8%, because Monday and Tuesday were spent on the assumption that a deal was imminent.

The United States spent four months building a legal and moral case against tolls in the Strait of Hormuz. On June 24, Trump called any fee on transiting shipping unacceptable. Marco Rubio, asked about the distinction between a fee and a toll, said there wasn’t one — it was an international waterway, and no nation on Earth supported paying to cross it. Washington told the Gulf states, told Singapore, told the European Commission, and told Beijing that the principle was not negotiable.

Washington didn’t engineer the Saudi-UAE split. It just watched it happen. 🇺🇸🇸🇦🇦🇪Behind the scenes: The Trump administration was slow to grasp how serious the rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia had become — and chose not to get involved as it deepened, U.S. and regional sources said 🇺🇸🇸🇦🇦🇪Early on in the crisis, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told… https://t.co/StlZA4mgi7 — Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) May 2, 2026 Axios reporting confirms what the OPEC exit made undeniable: the Trump administration miscalculated both the depth of the Saudi-UAE rupture and the cost of non-intervention.

The 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz has confirmed what energy strategists long warned: a single narrow waterway carrying one-fifth of the world’s seaborne oil trade represents a systemic vulnerability no amount of diplomatic goodwill can insure against. But the crisis has also accelerated something the MarketWatch framing captured before the shooting started — the conditions under which Hormuz matters less are now being built in real time, under duress.