WASHINGTON, MAY 10: With US President Donald Trump due to visit China this week, there has been mounting pressure to draw a line under the war, which has ignited a global energy crisis and poses a growing threat to the world economy.

But, despite diplomatic efforts to break a deadlock between the two sides and the passage of the Qatari gas tanker, the threat to shipping lanes and the economies of the region remained high.

On Sunday, the UAE said it intercepted two drones coming from Iran, while Qatar condemned a drone attack that hit a cargo ship coming from Abu Dhabi in its waters. Kuwait said its air defenses had dealt with hostile drones that entered its airspace.

Tehran has largely blocked non-Iranian shipping through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, which before the war carried one-fifth of the world’s oil supply and which has emerged as one of the central pressure points in the war.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, who discussed Pakistan’s mediation efforts to end the war with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Miami on Saturday, told Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi that using the Strait of Hormuz as a “pressure tool” would only deepen the crisis.

He told Araghchi in a phone call that freedom of navigation should not be compromised, the Qatari foreign ministry said on Sunday, without specifying the exact date of the call.