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- President Donald Trump said the U.S. has secretly brought millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
- Trump said the clandestine oil flows are one of the reasons that crude prices are below $100 per barrel.
Vessels in the Strait of Hormuz near the beach of Bandar Abbas, Iran, June 8, 2026.Amirhosein Khorgooi | ISNA | WANA | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the U.S. has secretly brought millions of barrels of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
“We’ve been taking out millions of barrels of oil. Nobody knows it. You know who doesn’t know about it? Iran, until right now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We took out the other night 22 ships, late at night with no lights, because they don’t have any radar, because we blasted the crap out of it.”
Trump said the clandestine oil flows are one of the reasons that crude prices are below $100 per barrel. His comments come after Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Tuesday that oil exports through Hormuz are “rising very meaningfully” without elaborating further.
Dozens of ships stranded in the Persian Gulf have exited through Hormuz in recent weeks amid quiet coordination with the U.S. Navy, according to a report from Lloyd’s Llist Intelligence last week.
U.S. forces are communicating and coordinating with ships that seek to freely and safely transit the strait but is not escorting vessels, a defense offical told CNBC last week.
An exchange of fire last week between the U.S. and Iran began when three drones were launched toward “civilian mariners that were rightfully transiting regional waters,” according to U.S. Central Command.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Congress last week that the U.S. is responding to Iranian attacks on commercial ships. Iran’s drones are not precise and could hit any part of the vessel, which risks an ecological disaster, Rubio said.
“If they don’t shoot at those ships, we don’t shoot but we have to respond,” Rubio told the House Foreign Relations Committee.
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