America Just Blockaded a Waterway That Feeds the World. We Should Be Writing Apology Letters.

The U.S. Navy began enforcing a blockade of Iran’s ports this morning. Oil is above $100. Gas in New Hampshire is up a dollar a year. And the people who started this war are not the people paying for it.

At 10 AM Eastern this morning, the United States Navy began enforcing a blockade of every port and coastal facility belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Destroyers are patrolling the Strait of Hormuz. Oil is above $100 a barrel. The Dow dropped 275 points at the open. And at gas stations across New Hampshire — where the average gallon just crossed $3.97, up 33% from this time last year — working families are doing the math on whether they can afford to drive to work this week.

This is not an accident. This is not blowback. This is a policy choice.

Six weeks ago, the United States and Israel launched an air war against Iran that killed its supreme leader. Iran retaliated by effectively shutting down the Strait of Hormuz — the 21-mile-wide chokepoint through which one-fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supply flows. Since then, daily vessel transits have collapsed from 130 to fewer than 20. OPEC crude production has fallen by nearly 8 million barrels per day. Global food prices are climbing because fertilizer shipments are stuck in the Gulf. The IEA has called it the greatest energy security crisis in history.

And after 21 hours of peace talks in Islamabad collapsed over the weekend — while the President of the United States was watching a UFC fight in Miami with his Secretary of State — Trump went to Truth Social and announced total blockade.

The country that started this war is now blockading the country it attacked, while the rest of the world pays the price.

What This Costs New Hampshire

This isn’t abstract. According to the Joint Economic Committee, New Hampshire residents have already absorbed more than $38 million in additional gasoline costs since the war began. NH gas is up nearly a dollar a gallon from last year. Diesel — which moves every product on every shelf in every store in this state — is at $5.74. Heating oil, which more than half of Granite State homes still rely on, is at $5.47.

And it’s about to get worse. JPMorgan’s commodities desk warned today that the last pre-war tanker to clear Hormuz is expected to deliver its cargo by April 20. After that, pre-crisis supply is gone. Analysts are projecting $110 oil if the blockade holds through May.

For a state where the median household income is around $90,000 and where rural commuters routinely drive 30-plus miles each way to work, these aren’t talking points. They’re monthly budget crises. They fall hardest on exactly the people who can’t absorb them — the same people now facing Medicaid work requirements and new premiums under the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The Part Nobody Wants to Say

Iran did not start this war. The United States and Israel did. On February 28, 2026, American and Israeli forces launched an air campaign that killed the supreme leader of a sovereign nation. The stated justification — nuclear ambitions — is the same justification that has been offered, in various forms, for 25 years. And the result, as it always is, falls overwhelmingly on civilians.

The Iranian delegation that traveled to Islamabad for peace talks carried photographs and bloodied belongings of schoolchildren killed in American missile strikes. They placed them on the empty seats of their plane. Iran’s parliament speaker posted a photo of gas prices near Washington, D.C. and told Americans to enjoy them while they last.

Meanwhile, Trump threatened to “eliminate” any Iranian vessel that approaches the blockade — using, he said, the same “system of kill” used against drug boats at sea. He openly admits he is considering resuming airstrikes. The ceasefire that was supposed to last until April 22 is functionally dead.

And the global community — from the UK’s refusal to join the blockade to the Kremlin’s warnings about market damage — is watching the United States act unilaterally against a nation whose 90 million citizens depend on those ports for food, medicine, and economic survival.

Why I Wrote Sincerely, America

I wrote Sincerely, America because the United States has a pattern — one that stretches across decades and continents — of inflicting enormous harm on civilian populations and then moving on without acknowledgment. Iran is not the first country to experience this. It’s just the latest.

The book is structured as a series of letters — honest, uncomfortable, specific letters — to the countries and peoples the United States has harmed through covert operations, military interventions, economic warfare, and deliberate destabilization. Not as performance. Not as self-flagellation. As accountability.

What’s happening in the Strait of Hormuz right now is what happens when a country refuses to account for its own pattern. The same playbook. The same escalation logic. The same civilian cost. The same refusal to see the people at the other end of the policy as people.

The Iranian people did not blockade the strait. Their government did — in response to an air war that killed their leader and destroyed military infrastructure across their country. And now the United States is responding to the response with an escalation that will make energy unaffordable for billions of people, from Bahrain to Berlin to Belknap County.

What Granite Staters Should Understand

This isn’t happening in a vacuum. It’s happening while you fill your tank on Route 3. While you decide whether to turn the heat back on because April in New Hampshire is still cold. While you calculate whether diesel prices will raise the cost of the groceries you buy at Market Basket.

Every dollar you spend at the pump above last year’s price is a direct cost of this war. Not a side effect. Not an unintended consequence. A cost.

The question isn’t whether you support or oppose the blockade. The question is whether you understand who’s paying for it — and whether you believe the people making these decisions in Washington are thinking about you when they make them.

I don’t think they are.

Dexter Dow is a journalist, author, and publisher based in Northfield, NH. He is the founder of Granite State Report and the author of Sincerely, America: Apology Letters to Every Country We’ve Wronged, available on Amazon and at dexterdow.com.