Trapped in the Strait of Hormuz

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journal.

Episode: Trapped in the Strait of Hormuz
Date: May 19, 2026
Hosts: Jessica Mendoza and Ryan Knutson (primarily Jessica Mendoza in this episode)
Contributors: Drew Hinshaw and Jared Malson

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Overview

This episode explores the economic, strategic, and deeply human fallout after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz—a critical waterway for global trade—amid escalating conflict between the US, Israel, and Iran. With thousands of cargo ships stranded and over 20,000 sailors trapped aboard, the episode reveals not only the geopolitical deadlock but also the faces of the crisis: low-wage workers desperate for information, safety, and a way home. The discussion highlights failed rescue efforts, the complex standoff between military powers, and the mounting humanitarian and economic costs as the world waits for a resolution.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Strategic and Economic Chokepoint

[00:05–02:10]

• Scale of the Disruption: Pre-war, 130 cargo ships passed through the Strait daily. Last week, fewer than half made the transit.
• Near Standstill: 800 ships at various stages in the waterway; 2,000 ships currently waiting to transport essential goods.
• Immediate Consequences: "The Iran war has all but closed off a vital waterway for oil exports. It is essential to the entire world economy." — Drew Hinshaw [00:21]
• Global Ripple Effects: Oil flow and supply chains are severely disrupted, with tangible impacts on economies worldwide.

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2. Focus on the Seafarers Trapped in Limbo

[01:00–09:50]

• Human Cost: 20,000 seafarers, often from poor, non-belligerent countries (e.g., Syria, Indonesia, the Philippines), are stranded.
  • "Their only crime was to go on a boat that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." — Drew Hinshaw [01:19]
• Living Conditions:
  • Many running out of food, water, and provisions—some down to rice and water, or stretching weeks-old cabbage.
  • Crews are experiencing uncertainty, depression, and lack of communication.
  • "They're not trained for naval battles... They're not trained for 21st-century sea battles where there are Iranian drones and missiles flying overhead." — Drew Hinshaw [04:47]
• Mental Health & Coping:
  • Some try to keep morale up with exercise, games, or by watching maritime thrillers (e.g., Captain Phillips, Titanic).
  • Contact with home is sporadic: "The cell service... is extraordinarily bad. It goes out for days; it comes for a few minutes, it goes away." — Drew Hinshaw [08:39]
• Isolation from Information:
  • Ironically, stranded sailors lack news and contact, seeking updates from reporters: "All of us are bombarded with information… The people on there are kind of lacking a steady enough Internet connection to understand what is going on." — Drew Hinshaw [09:11]
• Conflicting Orders:
  • Crews are unsure whom to obey—US or Iranian instructions: "There's conflicting information. And these sailors are like, who do I listen to, the Iranians or the U.S.?" — Drew Hinshaw [09:59]
  • Fear and caution prevail—crews decline to leave despite US reassurances, citing Iranian threats.

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3. Mounting Economic and Operational Consequences

[06:45–07:39]

• Owner Dilemmas:
  • Shipowners are absorbing escalating costs. Some can resupply; others face bankruptcy, directly harming crews.
  • "When those guys run out of cash, that affects the crew whose wages and supplies and... food and fuel all come from the ship owner who was counting on delivering a cargo and making money." — Drew Hinshaw [06:55]
• Risk of Movement:
  • Ships hesitate to resupply or move due to sea mines, risk of losing their place in line, or worsening danger.

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4. The US Military Response: Project Freedom

[13:17–16:48]

• Failure to Reopen:
  • "Project Freedom," announced by President Trump, aimed to use military escorts and aerial coverage to create a safe transit lane.
    • "The idea was that the military would send two U.S. navy warships, a pair of guided missile destroyers, into the strait... scramble aircraft... to create this kind of defensive shield." — Jared Malson [13:48]
  • The project was abruptly canceled after 36 hours due to heavy Iranian retaliation—missile and drone attacks on ships and oil infrastructure.
  • Result: Only two ships made it out; significant escalation risk meant the project was a strategic failure despite a partial tactical success.
    • "It showed that even though they got a couple of ships out, they could not force the Iranians to pull back from their attacks, which is what is scaring away ship owners." — Jared Malson [16:48]

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5. Iran’s Strategy: Control and Tolls

[17:15–17:58]

• New Persian Gulf Strait Authority:
  • Iran establishes a “tollbooth,” charging select ships and institutionalizing control.
  • "Iran has created the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a signal that the country doesn't plan to give up what control it has if Hormuz anytime soon." — Jessica Mendoza [17:48]
  • Control is leverage in negotiations and future strategy.

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6. What’s Next? No Good Options

[18:16–19:26]

• Possible Paths Forward:
  • Negotiation with Iran, renewed military action (threatened bombing), or more failed corridors.
  • “They have a lot of bad options remaining in front of them.” — Jared Malson [18:21]
• Economic Fallout:
  • Oil prices continue to climb; rationing and blackouts spread globally.
  • “There’s this new acronym that’s being thrown around, nacho, which stands for Not a chance Hormuz Opens… Is that the new reality?” — Jessica Mendoza [19:20]
    • “I would say that is the new reality.” — Jared Malson [19:26]
  • The blockade is now a test of economic endurance between Iran and the US-backed coalition.

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7. The Human Toll: Hostages or the Forgotten?

[20:09–21:35]

• Debate About ‘Hostages’:
  • “Well, they're hostages of this… insane situation in the Gulf.” — Jared Malson [20:09]
  • Drew Hinshaw pushes back: “Hostages are valuable. Governments want to get hostages back. Nobody is really putting a priority on these people.... They are forgotten.” — Drew Hinshaw [20:35]
  • The plight of the sailors is overshadowed by concerns about oil, highlighting the dehumanizing aspect of geopolitics.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Their only crime was to go on a boat that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.” — Drew Hinshaw [01:19]
• "They're not trained for naval battles... They're not trained for 21st-century sea battles where there are Iranian drones and missiles flying overhead." — Drew Hinshaw [04:47]
• “Some crews say their ship owners have stopped responding to them altogether. For other crews, resupplying is just too dangerous.” — Jessica Mendoza [07:31]
• "All of us are bombarded with information about the Strait of Hormuz... But the people on there are kind of lacking a steady enough Internet connection... to understand what is going on." — Drew Hinshaw [09:11]
• "Hostages are valuable. Governments want to get hostages back. Nobody is really putting a priority on these people. ...the people who make our modern way of life possible... are forgotten.” — Drew Hinshaw [20:35]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:05 — The closure of the Strait of Hormuz and global consequences
• 01:06 — Human impact: 20,000 seafarers trapped
• 04:47 — Sailors’ backgrounds and challenges
• 05:19 — Dangers faced by crews (missile/drone strikes)
• 06:55 — Ship owners’ struggles and impact on crews
• 08:00 — Daily life, morale, and mental health onboard
• 09:11 — Information blackout for stranded crews
• 13:33 — Project Freedom and its fast failure
• 16:48 — US Military limitations and strategic failure
• 17:48 — Iran’s “tollbooth” and moves to consolidate control
• 18:21 — No good options left for unlocking the strait
• 19:26 — "NACHO": The new “not a chance Hormuz opens” reality
• 20:35 — The forgotten human cost of the crisis

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Tone and Style

The episode strikes a balanced, urgent tone—combining grounded reporting, clear economic analysis, and empathetic attention to the seafarers’ plight. The voices of Jessica Mendoza and the reporters are direct, concerned, and occasionally incredulous about the scale and human dimension of the crisis.

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Takeaway

“Trapped in the Strait of Hormuz” reframes the ongoing standoff as not only a contest of global power and economic endurance but also a stark reminder of the hidden, human sacrifices that power the world’s supply chains. As nations maneuver for leverage, tens of thousands of overlooked workers remain isolated at sea, awaiting a solution no one seems able—or willing—to deliver.

Transcript

[Jessica Mendoza]

Before the US and Israel launched attacks on Iran, about 130 cargo ships would pass through the Strait of Hormuz every day. But according to one shipping tracker, less than half of that went through the strait all last week.

[Drew Hinshaw]

The Iran war has all but closed off a vital waterway for oil exports from the Middle East. It is essential to the entire world

[Jared Malson]

economy, and it has been more or

[Jessica Mendoza]

less shut down entirely. The slowdown in the strait has already had serious economic consequences around the world, and getting ships moving again has become a major strategic focus for the US

[Jared Malson]

the pressure to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is intensifying as well as the rhetoric around it. Some 2,000 ships wait to transport a

[Advertisement Voice]

variety of essential goods around the world.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But also at stake are the fates of the sailors and crew trapped on those ships.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Right now, there are 20,000 seafarers stuck on cargo ships and oil tankers in the Persian Gulf.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Our colleague Drew Hinshaw has been talking to some of those sailors for weeks.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Many of these are low wage workers from some of the world's poorer countries, countries that have little if anything to do with this conflict. They've kind of become collateral damage in this standoff. Their only crime was to go on a boat that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, drew says.

[Jessica Mendoza]

For some of the people on these ships, life has become a kind of purgatory.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Many of them are effectively pinned in. They were meant to leave the Persian Gulf weeks or months ago and can't leave. And now they've been running out of food, water, basic provisions even as they sit on ships that are loaded with millions and millions of dollars worth of cargo.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Welcome to the Journal, our show about money, business and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza. It's Tuesday, May 19th. Coming up on the show, the thousands of seafarers stuck in the Strait of Hormuz and why it's so hard to get them foreign.

[Jared Malson]

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[Jessica Mendoza]

Before the Strait of Hormuz closed, There were roughly 800 trade ships at various stages of transit through the waterway.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Some of them are loaded up with cargo or crude oil and they have deliveries. They're supposed to be delivering their cargo to some other port somewhere else in the and many of them loaded up with a few weeks worth of food, thinking, oh well, in a few weeks we'll be in Rotterdam or Houston or wherever they were supposed to sail.

[Jessica Mendoza]

What about the sailors? Where are they from?

[Drew Hinshaw]

They hail from countries with little voice in the conflict between Tehran and Washington. Places like Syria, Indonesia, the Philippines. They're not trained for war. These guys are trained to pick up cargo at one peaceful port, sail to another and unload. They're not trained for naval battles of these 21st century sea battles where there are Iranian drones and missiles flying overhead.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Yet that's the situation many of these sailors suddenly found themselves in when the war began.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Caught in the crossfire, sailors were witnessing missiles flying, drones flying overhead, missiles striking ports. They saw ships consumed by fire.

[Advertisement Voice]

Missiles fly above cargo ships.

[Jared Malson]

In the Strait of Hormuz, thousands of

[Jessica Mendoza]

vessels are at a standstill. Since the beginning of the war, more than 30 ships have been directly hit with missiles or drones and at least 10 sailors have died.

[Drew Hinshaw]

And then we had this kind of ceasefire take hold. But what didn't change is that the Iranians weren't allowing ships to leave through the Strait of Hormuz. And then soon after, the US erected its own blockade.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Now, with a stalemate on the strait, the situation for the seafarers is becoming increasingly dire.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Some of them continue to get paid. They continue to have supplies, food, water, fuel, Internet. Others lack some or even all of those things. We spoke to one Russian crew member who said his crew was down to rice and water. He has severe hypertension and lacked the medicine that he needs for that. Others are trying to make things like weeks old cabbage stretch. What all of them share is a complete uncertainty over when they are going home.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And just to be clear here, the people or the companies who own these ships, what is the calculus for them? What are they doing to try to deal with this situation?

[Drew Hinshaw]

The problem that the ship owners are having is that the costs of this crisis are really adding up and they're bearing the burden of that. Some ships have owners with enough money to say, okay, it's all right, just return to port, get more food, get more whatever you need. Others, the owners are going into bankruptcy or facing that. And naturally, when those guys run out of cash, that affects the crew whose wages and supplies and, you know, food and fuel all come from the ship owner who was counting on delivering a cargo and making money.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Some crews say their ship owners have stopped responding to them altogether. For other crews, resupplying is just too dangerous.

[Drew Hinshaw]

You have ships that are afraid to move because there's mines in their area, or at least the threat of sea mines. Others have this idea that if they move, they lose their place in line and they think, maybe if I just wait a couple more days, we'll go home.

[Jessica Mendoza]

What have these sailors been telling you about what they're doing day to day, how they're getting by?

[Drew Hinshaw]

You know, some have supplies, so they're doing things like celebrating birthdays. Some are playing games, board games, if they have them on board. We talked to one captain who makes his crew do squats and burpees and jog on deck, anything to keep their state of mind steady. Because what a lot of them are suffering from are things like depression or just sort of like, when am I going home? Kind of.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Some sailors pass the time ironically watching Hollywood nautical thrillers like Captain Phillips, the Admiral, even Titanic. Have they been able to talk to families or communicate with their home countries at all?

[Drew Hinshaw]

The cell service where many of these ships are is extraordinarily bad. It goes out for days, it comes for a few minutes, it goes away. Which means they can't contact their family reliably, but also they can't talk to their employers or their governments to say, hey, look, this is what I'm going through. You know, this is what we need.

[Jessica Mendoza]

When Drew and other reporters are able to connect with the sailors, they try to trade information. But it's often the sailors who are asking for the latest news, not the other way around.

[Drew Hinshaw]

It's kind of ironic because all of us are, like, bombarded with the information about this Strait of Hormuz and everything going on there. But the people on there are kind of lacking a steady enough Internet connection, many of them, to understand what is going on. Like, why am I not allowed to leave? What's happening? And US Reporters are getting calls and texts from them at all hours, asking us, is there any change? You know, what's going on? But we don't know either. We have to be straight with them. Like, look, this is what the Iranians have said. This is what the US has said. We can't tell you, you know, when it's safe to go home.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So it doesn't sound like it's even clear who these ships ought to be taking directions from.

[Drew Hinshaw]

That's 100% right.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Like, they're getting kind of conflicting orders.

[Drew Hinshaw]

Yes, there's conflicting information. And these sailors are like, who do I listen to, the Iranians or the U.S. we spoke to one crew that had received a message from the US Military saying, it's safe to go. You can come out. They discussed it with the owner and amongst themselves, and they all came to the conclusion that, you know, as the chief officer of the ship put it, the Iranians have guns. They're waiting there. The situation's not safe. So they stayed put, and they went back to jogging and working out on the deck of a cargo ship that's just moored in the Persian Gulf right now.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Drew says the current conflict has made the already dangerous jobs of these crew members even riskier.

[Drew Hinshaw]

This is now the third crisis over the past five years that's seriously disrupted shipping. So some of these sailors that we've spoken to, they had lived through missile strikes and drone strikes in the Black Sea, in the Russian Ukraine conflict, or even had also been on ships that had had some confrontation with the Houthis in the Red Sea. And I think for many of these workers, this is this big opportunity, and you're feeding your family back home and your country, and you are the provider. And now you're in a situation where you are. You're in danger, and your family's worried about you, and you might not be getting paid because your owner has gone bankrupt or is in some way walked away from his ship because of this conflict.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And this crisis may prove to be one of the most difficult for sailors to get out of. After the break, how the US Tried and failed to get ships moving again, and what options might be left.

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[Jessica Mendoza]

When the war began, Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz almost immediately. And even after Iran and the US Agreed to a ceasefire, they could not agree on how to reopen the strait. Our colleague Jared Malson has been following the deadlock.

[Jared Malson]

So earlier in May, the Trump administration announced what it called Project Freedom.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Project Freedom was a military plan to open up a path through the strait. Breaking news from President Trump, putting this

[Jared Malson]

out on Truth Social, announcing that the US Will help to escort ships. The idea was that the military would send two U.S. navy warships, a pair of guided missile destroyers, into the strait to do that, and then scramble aircraft overhead, including drones, helicopters and fighter aircraft, as well as jammers, to prevent Iran from seeing into the strait and to create this kind of defensive shield. And it was designed to clear a new channel that they would create a shield around and push back on Iran's control over the strait.

[Jessica Mendoza]

The US Government said it would create a lane that ships could use through the strait.

[Jared Malson]

And this was kind of what one former Pentagon official said was sort of doing it on the cheap, where they wanted to do it in a way that would potentially lower the risk of escalation. And what it resulted in was, I think from the perspective of the shipping industry, was a little bit of a confusing message.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But less than 36 hours after it launched, Project Freedom was called off.

[Jared Malson]

This is a stunning reversal from the president who Operation Freedom, where US Navy ships escorted commercial vessels through the Strait, would now be paused.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Why did Project Freedom fall apart?

[Jared Malson]

Because Iran retaliated. They launched a series of attacks on commercial ships. They attacked the US Navy rockets firing

[Drew Hinshaw]

warning shots at American destroyers attempting to enter the Strait of Hormuz, more drones

[Jessica Mendoza]

and several small boats to target American commercial vessels that were attempting to transit the water with.

[Jared Malson]

And they also launched a missile and drone attack on a very important oil terminal in the United Arab Emirates, which raised the specter of a return to war. Essentially, this was really the worst escalation in the war since the de facto ceasefire that came into being in April.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Project Freedom resulted in just two ships passing out of the strait. Jared says even though that was something of a tactical success, the operation was a strategic failure for the US Overall.

[Jared Malson]

When the time came to do this, essentially, you know, the first trial run of this, to establish proof of concept, bullets started flying. Iran was able to reassert its control over the Strait, and there was a risk of a wider escalation in the war itself, which is obviously something the administration is making clear it doesn't want right now.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Right. The US Basically wasn't able to show that it could guarantee that safety that they said that they could.

[Jared Malson]

Precisely. It showed that even though they got a couple of ships out, they could not force the Iranians to pull back from their attacks, which is what is scaring away ship owners from sending oil and other vital resources through the strait. It was an important illustration of what the US Military can and can't accomplish in the Persian Gulf right now.

[Jessica Mendoza]

Iran has also tried its own strategy to get ships moving by creating a kind of tollbooth.

[Jared Malson]

The tollbooth idea is still a live issue. Iran, as far as we know, is continuing to attempt to charge tolls from some ships, and they are continuing to try to institutionalize their control over the Strait. As far as we know, it's a small number of ships that have been paying the toll. It's a small number of ships that are passing through. Just in general,

[Jessica Mendoza]

Iran has created the Persian Gulf Strait Authority, a signal that the country doesn't plan to give up what control it has if Hormuz anytime soon.

[Jared Malson]

I think they are serious about maintaining their most important source of leverage over the US and the world, which is why this is going to be a very difficult issue to untangle in any negotiations with the Iranians.

[Jessica Mendoza]

So what options are left?

[Jared Malson]

Well, I think what a lot of military analysts are saying is that they have a lot of bad options remaining in front of them, they can negotiate with the Iranian regime, which is what they are currently doing through intermediaries. Trump obviously has threatened to return to bombing, which is another option that they have in front of them, or they can try these other kinds of military options, like they did with Project Freedom, which didn't end very well.

[Jessica Mendoza]

As the stalemate continues, oil prices have gone up, and countries reliant on oil from the Gulf have been rationing fuel and instituting blackouts. And the longer the strait remains closed, the worse the energy shock will get. There's this new acronym that's being thrown around, nacho, which stands for Not a chance Hormuz Opens. And it's this idea that the strait will stay closed until, like, the economic consequences become more severe. Is that the new reality?

[Jared Malson]

I would say that is the new reality. Since the imposition of the blockade by the U.S. there has been this test of which side can withstand economic pain longer. So it is really a question of whether the administration or the Iranian regime buckles first.

[Jessica Mendoza]

And when we think about the strait, right, we think about these oil tankers, we think about the oil that's stuck there. But we talked to our colleague Drew Hinshaw about all the people, like the sailors who have been stuck there for months because the strait has been closed. Jared, what do you make of all those people who are stuck there and what it means, what they mean for the status of this conflict?

[Jared Malson]

Well, they're hostages of this. This insane situation in the Gulf. I mean, it's thousands of sailors on board these ships for now, months at a time. And it's one pressing reason that there needs to be a solution to this problem as soon as possible.

[Jessica Mendoza]

But our colleague Drew says hostages might not be the right word.

[Drew Hinshaw]

We were talking to officials about, like, do you consider these people hostages? Right, because in some ways, they are stuck on the Persian Gulf. Iran is not letting them go home. Aren't they kind of like hostages in a way? And the way one person pushed back was to say, no, hostages are valuable. Governments want to get hostages back. Nobody is really putting a priority on these people. We talk a lot about the oil. Like, when is the oil going to start flowing to the strait again so that we can go back to paying lower gas prices. But there's also, like, a human issue here, which is that the. The people who make our modern way of life possible, these seafarers who bring us our oil and our goods, they are forgotten, and they're left there. And in the conversation, they're not even as important as the oil or whatever other commodity we're hoping to get out of this strait of Hormuz.

[Jessica Mendoza]

That's all for today. Tuesday, May 19th. The Journal is a co production of Spotify and the Wall Street Journal. Additional reporting in this episode by Milan Cherni, Rebecca Fung, Shelby Holiday, Costas Paris, and Joe Parkinson. Thanks for listening. See you tomorrow.