Ship traffic in Strait of Hormuz has plunged. The White House response keeps shifting.
In the first 15 days of the war in Iran, just 92 ships braved passage through the Strait of Hormuz, according to the IMF’s Portwatch in partnership with Oxford University. For comparison, more vessels made that passage just on Feb. 27, the last full day before hostilities began.
And most of those passages — which include some oil tankers — have apparently been ships with ties to Iran, as efforts from the Trump administration to open the waterway to a wider audience have had little immediate effect.
The new data from Portwatch and other trackers offers a fuller portrait of the crucial waterway, making clear just how few ships have made the trip even amid frequent promises from the Trump administration that a return to normalcy is imminent.
For his part, President Trump has made evolving comments throughout the conflict on how soon the strait will reopen — and how much help is needed to get it accomplished.
President Donald Trump speaks on the occasion of St. Patrick’s Day in the East Room of the White House on March 17. (Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty Images) ·JIM WATSON via Getty Images
On Wednesday morning, he pivoted again, wondering on Truth Social what would happen if the US military “finished off” Iran’s regime but then left the strait as an issue for other countries to worry about.
Most oil and natural gas that passes through the strait goes to Asia, but higher global energy prices have been felt around the world. The strait carried about a fifth of the world’s daily oil supplies before the war broke out.
Both international benchmark Brent crude (BZ=F) and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) remain at around $100 per barrel, and domestic gas prices in the US rose again Wednesday to an average of $3.84 per gallon.
Trump’s administration pulled another lever Wednesday to try to get US prices under control with a 60-day waiver of the Jones Act, which will allow energy resources to be transported between US ports on ships not constructed in the US.
That could ease price pressures in some corners of the US, like the West Coast and New England, that often don’t have oil sources nearby. It’s a move that press secretary Karoline Leavitt called “another step to mitigate the short-term disruptions.”
Yet experts agree that the main change needed to get a handle on global prices is a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Trump administration’s efforts have yielded little so far, with comments that also regularly contradict the facts on the ground.
For example, on March 10, Energy Secretary Chris Wright posted and then deleted a tweet claiming that the US Navy had successfully escorted an oil tanker through the strait.
The IMF data shows that just four ships, including one tanker, made the passage that day.
“The only thing prohibiting transit in the straits right now is Iran shooting at shipping,” Hegseth said, even as only three ships sailed the channel that day — the same day that the president posted that Iran was being destroyed “militarily, economically, and otherwise.”
The IMF’s data only goes through March 15, but other trackers suggest that little has changed in recent days. Ship tracking service Marine Traffic posted on Tuesday that “Strait of Hormuz activity remains limited,” with just 15 vessels being seen transiting over the prior three days.
Indian vessel ‘Nanda Devi’ carrying liquefied petroleum gas arrives in India on March 17 after Iran allowed it to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. (AFP via Getty Images) ·STR via Getty Images
Those totals are a pittance compared to traffic before the war began. In the last two days of February, 171 ships made the journey, according to the IMF data — far more than the entire month of March so far.
The IMF’s data also shows the types of ships making the passage in recent weeks.
25 container ships or those labeled as “general cargo” have moved this month, and 31 ships labeled as “Dry Bulk” (which likely includes fertilizer shipments) have also crossed the waterway.
Meanwhile, 35 tanker boats have made the trip as some shipments of oil to India and China — which both the Trump administration and Iranian regime support — have continued, though they are far below pre-war levels.
Trump had been pressing allies to send warships to help US naval escorts — which still have yet to begin, even from the US. The lack of participants led the president on Tuesday to lash out at the NATO alliance as “our so-called allies” before pivoting and claiming that the US no longer needs assistance.
But even Trump has acknowledged the unique challenge in the strait that his military hasn’t been able to solve.
“Literally a single terrorist can put something in the water, or shoot something … because it is a tight area,” he said on Monday.
Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
