Iran played its Hormuz card. But Trump said no. Here’s why
US escorts and oil flows have eased pressure on Washington to accept Tehran’s terms
Dubai: US President Donald Trump has rejected Iran’s offer to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days, raising a bigger question after seven months of war: Has Tehran’s most powerful bargaining chip begun to lose some of its value?
“I reject their proposal,” Trump told reporters on Saturday, rejecting a plan Tehran had conveyed to Washington through Qatari mediators.
Iran had offered to reopen the strategic waterway and halt hostilities as part of a wider arrangement that would also restart negotiations. In return, Tehran sought measures including the lifting of the US blockade on Iranian ports, the release of frozen funds and waivers on oil sanctions.
Trump said he still wanted a deal, but described Iran’s proposal as unacceptable.
His refusal comes despite the enormous importance of Hormuz to global energy markets — and may reflect a changing US calculation about how urgently Washington needs Tehran’s cooperation to keep oil moving.
Oil is moving — but shipping is far from normal
Commercial traffic through Hormuz remains a fraction of pre-war levels.
Before the conflict began on February 28, about 125 large commercial vessels passed through the strait each day. Last weekend, just 17 tracked commodity vessels crossed over two days, according to shipping data cited by Reuters.
Yet the amount of oil escaping the region tells a more complicated story.
US Central Command chief Admiral Brad Cooper said last week that American forces had supported the safe movement of more than one billion barrels of crude through Hormuz over the previous two months and facilitated the transit of more than 2,000 commercial vessels with coordinated protection.
Cooper also said volumes of crude, LNG and cargo moving through the waterway during a recent two-week period were higher than at any point in the previous six months.
Oil producers have also developed expensive workarounds. Ship-to-ship transfers near Oman and protected tanker movements have helped exports through Hormuz reach around 6.5 million barrels a day so far in September, according to Kpler data cited by Reuters.
That remains a long way from normality. But it suggests Washington and regional producers have found ways to keep substantial volumes moving despite the disruption.
Trump himself has suggested that Washington’s assessment of Hormuz is changing. Last month, pointing to alternative energy supplies and continued oil movements despite the disruption, he said the strait was “not going to be quite as important as it was in the past”.
Why that matters for Iran
Hormuz remains an extraordinarily powerful source of leverage for Tehran. Before the war, the waterway handled roughly a fifth of global oil consumption, and prolonged disruption has driven up freight, insurance and other costs.
But leverage depends not only on the ability to cause disruption. It also depends on how much pain the other side is willing — and able — to absorb.
The US military escort operation and the energy industry’s workarounds have not solved the Hormuz crisis. They are costly, complex and vulnerable to renewed attacks.
But they may have reduced the urgency for Washington to make major concessions simply to secure an immediate reopening.
That distinction could help explain Trump’s willingness to reject an Iranian proposal that offered something Washington clearly wants: normal passage through the strait.
Tehran says the pressure remains
Iran, however, is showing no sign that it believes its Hormuz leverage has disappeared.
Army Commander-in-Chief Amir Hatami said on Sunday that the conflict had reached a “critical and decisive” stage and made clear that Tehran continued to link its own ability to trade with access to the strategic waterway, Reuters reported.
His comments came as Iranian military officials warned that the country was prepared for renewed US attacks.
The message from Tehran is that Hormuz remains central to its strategy.
And the numbers support part of that argument: Normal commercial shipping has not returned, the cost of moving oil remains high and maintaining flows requires substantial military and commercial resources.
The calculation has changed
That leaves Washington and Tehran with sharply different assessments of the same bargaining chip.
Iran is offering the reopening of Hormuz as part of a package that would bring significant economic and military relief.
Trump’s rejection suggests Washington does not currently believe reopening the strait is worth Tehran’s asking price.
That does not mean the Hormuz card has failed. Nor does it mean Washington can indefinitely absorb the economic and military costs of keeping energy moving through a conflict zone.
But months of escorts, alternative shipping arrangements and other workarounds appear to have given Washington something it did not have when the strait first became severely disrupted: time.
Iran still holds the Hormuz card. The question now is whether Washington believes it has made that card less expensive to resist.
