The same week U.S. Marines boarded a foreign cargo ship in the Persian Gulf to check whether it was heading to an Iranian port, President Donald Trump sent a letter to Congress declaring the war with Iran is over.
The two events happened within days of each other. Neither side of the contradiction has blinked.
Trump’s letter, addressed to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate President pro tempore Chuck Grassley, states that hostilities with Iran have been “terminated.” As confirmed by the Associated Press, the declaration effectively resets the legal clock under the War Powers Resolution, the 1973 law that requires presidents to withdraw forces or obtain congressional authorization within 60 days of committing troops to hostilities. By saying the fighting is done, the White House argues the deadline no longer applies.
But the fighting, or something that looks very much like it, has not stopped.
The blockade is still running
A White House statement released in April 2026 celebrates the naval blockade of Iranian ports as a pillar of American “energy dominance” and a tool for projecting strength. The language describes an ongoing operation, not a temporary wartime measure being wound down.
U.S. Central Command’s actions match that tone. On or around April 25, Marines boarded a cargo vessel called the Blue Star III after suspecting it was bound for an Iranian port in violation of the blockade. According to AP’s account of the CENTCOM report, the ship was released after inspection confirmed no Iranian port call was planned. The crew was questioned. The cargo was checked. The route was scrutinized.
“This was a routine enforcement action consistent with the maritime security mission,” a CENTCOM spokesperson told the Associated Press.
Routine or not, boarding a foreign-flagged commercial vessel in international waters under threat of force is, by most legal and military definitions, an enforcement action that carries the weight of coercion. That is not the posture of a military winding down.
Gas at $4.43 and climbing
While Washington debates whether the war is legally over, Americans are paying for it at the pump.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s retail gasoline price series shows the national monthly average for regular gas reached $4.103 per gallon in April 2026, the highest level recorded during the blockade period. By May 15, 2026, AAA’s daily national average tracker showed regular gasoline hitting $4.43 per gallon. In some coastal markets and areas dependent on imported refined products, drivers have been paying well above that.
Maria Hernandez, who commutes 45 minutes each way to her nursing job in suburban Houston, told CBS affiliate KHOU in a May 2026 segment on fuel costs that the spike has forced her to rethink her budget. “I filled up yesterday and it was $4.51. That is almost $70 to fill my tank. I have started packing lunch every day and skipping anything that is not essential.”
The connection between the blockade and pump prices is not complicated in broad strokes: blocking Iranian oil exports removes supply from a global market that was already tight. “When you take roughly 1.5 million barrels a day of Iranian crude off the market, that is a meaningful supply shock,” said Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House energy adviser, in what was described as a May 2026 CNBC interview. (A transcript or video of the interview could not be independently verified online at the time of publication.) “You can debate how many cents per gallon to attribute to the blockade versus refinery margins or seasonal factors, but the direction of the effect is not in doubt.”
McNally’s assessment aligns with the EIA’s own short-term energy outlook for May 2026, which cited “ongoing disruptions to Iranian crude exports” among the factors contributing to upward pressure on global benchmark prices. Gasoline pricing is shaped by dozens of overlapping forces, from refinery maintenance schedules to seasonal demand shifts to currency fluctuations, and no publicly released study has isolated exactly how many cents per gallon the blockade has added. But the correlation between the blockade’s start and the price climb is hard to dismiss.
The legal gray zone
The War Powers Resolution was designed to prevent exactly this kind of ambiguity. Passed in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto, it requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying forces into hostilities and sets a 60-day limit on unauthorized military action. Trump’s letter attempts to close that window by redefining the situation: if hostilities are “terminated,” the clock stops.
Whether a president can declare hostilities over while the military continues enforcing a blockade is a question that has divided constitutional scholars for decades.
“A blockade is historically considered an act of war under international law,” said Oona Hathaway, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, in comments to the AP. “Calling it something else does not change what it is.”
Senator Tim Kaine, a Virginia Democrat who has long pushed for stricter enforcement of war powers, was more blunt. In a May 2026 floor statement, he called the letter “a legal fiction designed to avoid accountability. You cannot tell Congress the war is over while the Navy is still stopping ships.”
Yet the AP’s reporting on Trump’s letter documents no formal congressional vote or legal challenge specific to this declaration. That silence matters. Without pushback from Congress or a court challenge, the administration’s legal theory stands by default, even if the facts on the water tell a different story.
What remains hidden
Several critical questions remain unanswered as of late May 2026. No official military or executive-branch document has disclosed whether the blockade’s rules of engagement changed after Trump’s letter, whether the number of ships enforcing it has shifted, or whether any drawdown of naval assets near the Strait of Hormuz is underway. The Blue Star III boarding suggests business as usual, but one incident is not a full picture.
Iran’s own account is difficult to verify independently. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, in a May 2026 briefing carried by state-run IRNA, called the blockade “an act of economic warfare against the Iranian people” and said Tehran “reserves all rights under international law to respond.” The statement did not specify what form a response might take. No detailed Iranian government data on the blockade’s effects on commerce, energy exports, or civilian life has surfaced in Western reporting, leaving a significant gap in the public understanding of what this operation is actually doing on the other side.
Internal administration deliberations are equally opaque. How did White House lawyers reconcile the ongoing blockade with the War Powers framework? What advice did military commanders provide about escalation risk? How did energy officials assess the likely impact on global oil markets before the blockade began? Those answers will likely surface only if internal memos or legal opinions are eventually released or leaked.
Terminated on paper, enforced at sea
The facts, drawn from the administration’s own statements, federal energy data, and confirmed military operations, point in two directions at once. The president says the war is over. The Navy is still stopping ships. And American consumers are absorbing the cost of a blockade that, according to the White House, is not a war but a feature of “energy dominance.”
For Congress, the question is whether to accept that framing or assert its authority under the War Powers Resolution. For drivers like Maria Hernandez, filling up at $4.51 a gallon in Houston, the distinction between “hostilities” and “enforcement” does not make the tank any cheaper to fill.
