Trump claims total control of Hormuz as seven ships cross in a day
The president repeated his “total control” formulation on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews on 21 August. The transit counts from the same week describe something closer to a closed strait than a controlled one.
Speaking to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews on 21 August, en route to South Carolina, Donald Trump was asked whether US military options against Iran were limited. “It just means that we’re seeing what happens,” he said, according to the Times of Israel liveblog. “We have total control of that entire region having to do with the Strait of Hormuz, and that means well into it, the land areas. So, they would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion.” It is the same phrase he used on 12 August, when he tied “total control” to the “Wall of Steel” blockade and Iran answered that the waterway stays shut until its demands are met.
CNN, reading MarineTraffic data, counted at least seven commercial ships through Hormuz in the 24 hours to 18 August — five inbound to the Gulf, two out into the Gulf of Oman. The previous day’s sample was three. CNN’s own reference figure for the pre-war norm is about 110 transits a day. Over the same 24 hours on 18 August, at least 40 commercial vessels transited Bab al-Mandeb, 21 into the Red Sea and 19 out into the Gulf of Aden, numbers CNN described as consistent with recent months. Two caveats belong with the figures: these are single-day counts from one commercial AIS feed, and CNN notes that GPS spoofing around both channels makes broadcast positions unreliable.
Assessment: “Total control” and “closed” are not opposites, and that is the point worth holding onto. A blockade that permits three to seven crossings a day is doing exactly what a blockade does; the question is who chose the number. Trump’s phrasing claims the choice as American, Tehran’s precondition — no reopening while the naval blockade stands — claims it as Iranian, and neither claim is testable from AIS data that CNN itself says is being spoofed. The Bab al-Mandeb figure is the useful control: 40 transits on the same day, in a corridor the Houthis are still striking. Whatever is throttling Hormuz is specific to Hormuz, and both governments have an interest in you believing they are the ones doing it.