"Around 70 percent of Iran's non-oil trade passes through ports that depend on access via the Strait of Hormuz," says gas and economic analyst Dalga Khatinoglu of Iran International, a London-based news outlet.
Blockading the strait long-term would hurt Iran itself.
"It doesn't feel rational for Iran to close the street of Hormuz, because they have the imports of the crucial goods like crucial food for example, but also the majority of their exports go to China and India, so that would turn against the country," energy expert Sara Vakhshouri of SVB Energy International told Bloomberg TV.
