QUICK TAKES // BY BEN FRANKELA Permanent Veto: Iran and the Strait of Hormuz
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright claims that oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is returning “back to normal” or “normalizing.” But there is no going back to normal because the old normal is dead and buried – a victim of the Trump-driven U.S. strategic defeat in the Iran war. That defeat has made Iran’s commercial veto power over the Strait the new normal.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright has repeatedly claimed that oil traffic through the Strait of Hormuz is returning “back to normal” or “normalizing.” He first asserted on ABC’s This Week that oil traffic volumes were “already back to normal.” Most recently, Wright stated that regional oil flows averaged roughly 15 million barrels per day—exceeding the pre-conflict baseline—and that private tracking firms undercount the numbers because vessels are moving covertly.
The figures Wright cites regarding the amount of oil being moved through the Strait – figures which allow him to claim that traffic in the Strait is “already back to normal” — are pointedly disputed by both U.S. government agencies and the oil and shipping industries. His claim that his figures are correct because oil tankers are moving covertly through the Strait so they are not being counted, is dismissed as bizarre in light of current tracking technology.
His exaggerated oil traffic figures, however, are less concerning than his apparent lack of understanding of how the Trump-driven strategic defeat of the United States in the Iran war has made going back to “normal” impossible because the old normal, the one which existed before 28 February 2026, is dead and buried.
The argument that Iran has lost control of the Strait of Hormuz because some ships are currently able to transit it confuses military control with commercial control. Iran does not need to maintain a permanent blockade of the Strait—or even to demonstrate its full military capability—to retain enormous leverage over it. Its fundamental advantage is geographical: Iran sits astride one side of a narrow maritime chokepoint through which about 20 percent of the world’s energy trade must pass.
At its narrowest, the Strait of Hormuz is only about 21 miles wide, while the shipping channels themselves are considerably narrower. In the first half of 2025, roughly 20.9 million barrels of oil and petroleum liquids a day passed through the Strait, equivalent to about one-fifth of global petroleum consumption. The alternatives are real but limited: existing Saudi and Emirati pipelines can bypass only a fraction of the volumes normally moving through Hormuz.
The crucial point, however, is that Iran does not have to close Hormuz to exercise control over it.
