Trump calls Hormuz “extremely good shape” as transit counts sit near zero

Speaking in the Oval Office on 31 August, Trump said the United States could still “smack” Iran “to see what happens,” said the Strait of Hormuz was in “extremely good shape,” and said Iran’s economy, military and leadership had largely deteriorated, reiterating that Tehran must not obtain nuclear weapons. On Truth Social he called Iran a “failed nation” whose “leadership is in total disarray and incapable of properly representing the country.” Pezeshkian, in his first comments after the Larak strike, said as he departed for Bishkek that Tehran is “not looking for war” but would “never sit still in the face of any aggression.” The traffic picture behind Trump’s line is thinner than the phrase suggests: Statista, using IMF PortWatch, recorded an average of six ships a day through the strait between 1 and 8 March against roughly 100 a day before the war, and NBC News, which maintains a rolling daily count, says traffic remains “nowhere near” pre-war levels after a brief pick-up.

CSIS, working from Starboard Maritime Intelligence AIS data, counted 187 vessels transiting the strait between 4 March and 11 June, more than half of them operated by shipping companies based in only four countries, with China at the top of that list; after Iran’s foreign minister announced a reopening on 17 April, most ships that surged toward the strait reversed course and remain stuck inside the Gulf, with at least 13 tankers getting through. The commercial tracker straits.live — an unverified source that should be named wherever it is used — recorded three transits on 23 August against a normal of about 85 a day and described the strait as effectively closed to commercial shipping as of 31 August. The Files has no verified Brent settlement for 31 August or 1 September; the only figure available is straits.live’s quote of $90.74.

Iran’s answer to the pressure is diplomatic. Pezeshkian arrived in Bishkek on Monday for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, running 31 August to 1 September on the bloc’s 25th anniversary, alongside Putin, Xi, Modi and Erdoğan, with bilaterals scheduled including Modi — who met him on the sidelines Monday — Pakistan’s Shehbaz Sharif and the Kyrgyz and Russian presidents. The track runs directly against the US campaign: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s 24 August Financial Times piece described an “economic D-Day,” and the design targets third states and entities buying or transporting Iranian oil, clearing Iranian transactions, hosting Iranian flights, maintaining ship registries or enabling ship-to-ship transfers. The summit communiqué and the Xi and Putin readouts were not out at the time of writing.

Assessment: Two things are being measured here and they are not the same. Washington’s claim is that the waterway is functioning; the counts say almost nothing is moving through it, which suits Tehran, because a strait nobody uses costs Iran little to keep closed and costs its customers a great deal. That is the leverage, not the mining. The Bishkek question is narrow: does Iran leave with communiqué language on unilateral sanctions it can wave at third-country shippers and insurers, or with photographs. Language changes nobody’s compliance calculus overnight, but it gives Beijing and Moscow a written excuse. Treat the tracker figures as directional, not precise — the commercial counts are unaudited, and a percentage change off a base of one ship means nothing.