The claim arrived in two forms on Wednesday, June 10, 2026: first as remarks to reporters in the Oval Office, then as a Truth Social post. President Donald Trump said the U.S. military had been quietly helping merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz, and that the effort had put more than 100 million barrels of oil on the open market.
The scale he gave was 200 commercial vessels. He said he had directed the military to start the work the month before. “This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran,” he wrote. In the same post he added: “Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost.” CNBC-TV18 reported that he closed with “It’s over for Iran.”
Nobody else has confirmed the numbers. CNBC-TV18 noted that the White House gave no further details of the operation and that the claims could not be independently verified. There was no immediate response from Iranian authorities.
What the oil market looked like
Trump credited the secret shipments with holding crude near $90 per barrel, when he said it would otherwise have surged above $200. CNBC put the pre-war picture in context: about 20% of global petroleum, or 20 million barrels per day, moved through Hormuz before the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Iran answered by attacking ships and mining the sea lane, and traffic plunged. The effective closure has cost the world more than 1 billion barrels of oil, which CNBC described as the largest supply disruption in history.
Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC that traffic was still well below pre-war levels and that the world was losing large volumes of oil every day. Against that, 100 million barrels is a fraction of what has gone missing.
There was one outside hint that more oil was moving than anyone could see. JPMorgan analysts wrote in a June 4 note that “surprising volumes of crude and petroleum products still appear to be transiting the Strait” despite the naval blockade. The bank estimated about 2 million barrels per day might be leaving on tankers with their transponders switched off.
A second attempt
This was not the first escort effort. In May, Trump announced and then abruptly halted a mission called Project Freedom, which was meant to escort tankers stranded in the Persian Gulf. The new operation, by Trump’s account, had been running since the month before without public notice.
Xinhua placed the announcement against a tense backdrop: stalled talks, an exchange of fire between Iran and the United States and Israel in recent days, and Trump’s order to continue strikes after a U.S. Army helicopter was downed on Monday.
Sources
- Trump says U.S. secretly moved more than 100 million barrels of oil through Strait of Hormuz (CNBC, Spencer Kimball; text as mirrored on Free Republic)
- Trump says US military helped move 100 million barrels of oil through Strait of Hormuz (CNBC-TV18)
- Trump says U.S. secretly escorted over 200 commercial ships through Hormuz Strait (Xinhua via ECNS)
