As Trump talks up oil flows in the Strait of Hormuz, can the US outlast Iran?

United States President Donald Trump has been projecting comfort with the status quo in the conflict with Iran.

According to the narrative being promoted by Trump and his allies, the US is getting oil out of the Strait of Hormuz and eroding Iran's leverage over the strategic waterway, with Washington's sanctions and blockade strangling Tehran's economy.

But as renewed violence between Yemen's Houthi group and Saudi Arabia puts further pressure on the oil market, and Iran shows willingness to escalate, any purported gains in Hormuz are not enough to turn the crisis in favour of Washington.

"I don't think it's good for US interests, and I think it's clearly not sustainable," Ryan Costello, policy director at the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), told The New Arab, regarding the current situation.

US officials have insisted in recent weeks that the amount of oil leaving the strait daily is approaching pre-war levels of around 20 million barrels a day.

"We’ve risen the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf to record highs right now. About 18 million barrels flowed out yesterday, basically pre-conflict levels," US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright told Fox News on Wednesday.

Trump and Vice President JD Vance have made similar claims as well.

It is difficult to verify these numbers because some vessels are crossing Hormuz at night with their transponders turned off to avoid being detected by Iranian forces.

Despite Trump's claims that the strait is now under US control, Iranian attacks on ships crossing the waterway have continued.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO), a monitoring group affiliated with the British Royal Navy, documented three attacks on oil tankers on Thursday and Friday.

UKMTO said in a report on Sunday that attacks and attempted attacks by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have persisted in the strait.

"These actions continue to demonstrate Iran’s intent to assert presence along key transit lanes and maintain pressure on transiting vessels," the report read.

"Commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remained at reduced levels compared to the 2025 baseline."

'Fog of war'

Costello said the US administration is likely using the "fog of war" and lack of reliable data on transit through the strait to inflate the amount of oil passing through the waterway.

"There have been a lot of other indications suggesting that the overall climate in the Strait of Hormuz is one of restriction, that it's very difficult to get oil through, that there is a laborious process underway to get some oil through," he told The New Arab.

If the US were indeed restoring the flow of oil through Hormuz, the change has not been reflected in the oil markets.

A barrel of oil has been trading at around $100 for weeks, and the Houthi attack on Saudi oil infrastructure has further complicated supply problems.

In the US, the price of diesel - a fuel used to power large machinery, including lorries that carry goods across the country - has broken several records this month, reaching $6.50 per gallon ($3.8 litre) on Sunday.

Likewise, gasoline has been on an upward trajectory, going for a national average of $4.47 per gallon on Sunday, according to the American Automobile Association (AAA). It was less than $3 before the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.

Negar Mortazavi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, said successfully moving individual tankers through the Strait of Hormuz is not the same as restoring the normal flow of oil.

"Commercial vessels still cannot transit regularly, at scale or without extraordinary military protection," Mortazavi told The New Arab.

She added that reported Iranian attacks on tankers in the strait show that "the waterway remains contested".

But the White House has been arguing that the waterway is completely open, with the US president suggesting that the waterway should be named Trump Strait.

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said the Trump administration wants to manage the pressure on the oil markets in Hormuz while keeping Iran under the weight of blockades and sanctions.

But the challenge for the US, according to Parsi, is that the possible success of that strategy may lead Iran to counter-escalate militarily.

"This is the paradox. If you're effective in pressuring them, they will pressure you back," he told The New Arab.

"It's a different story if the US was doing this against a country that had run out of escalatory options."

Parsi said if the US feels like it has a tactical advantage now, it would be smarter to bring it to the negotiations table because guarding ships through Hormuz is not "a success or an exit". 

War remains unpopular

In the US, the war remains unpopular despite the professed optimism in Trump's circle, according to public opinion polls, with high gasoline prices fuelling inflation.

A survey released by the Institute for Global Affairs (IGA) on Wednesday found that 60 percent of potential voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the war.

The unpopularity of the conflict may hurt the US president's Republican Party in the midterm elections in November, which will decide the makeup of Congress for the next two years.

A staggering 81 percent of respondents in the IGA poll also said the conflict in Iran has increased the cost of living.

Bottom line, the US public does not appear to be responding to the Trump administration's rhetoric about turning the tide of the war.

"There's a huge gap between the White House and the public and between elite opinion of this war and public opinion," Jonathan Guyer, program director at IGA, told The New Arab.

"If you look at these numbers, this is like the most unpopular war ever. None of the war aims are resonating. All the things that the White House is proposing that this war is about are not resonating. The public is just hugely sceptical and don't see a way out."

Ali Harb is a journalist based in Washington, DC. His work focuses on US foreign policy, elections, and Arab American communities

Follow him on X: @Harbpeace

Edited by Charlie Hoyle