Five trackers give five counts of Hormuz, and Washington’s claim of direct talks rests on none of them

Speaking to reporters on arrival in North Carolina on Thursday 17 September, Trump said he hoped “we’re nearing the end of the war,” said of Iran that “they want to make a deal, and we’ll see how it plays out,” and, pressed on whether the contact came through intermediaries, asserted it was direct. At a rally in Gastonia hours later he predicted “a really good ending,” suggested the conflict would likely wrap up after the November midterms, and called higher pump prices “a very small price to pay.” Al Jazeera noted there has been no confirmation from Tehran that direct negotiations have resumed, and that a senior Iranian official had publicly rejected talks a day earlier unless Iran’s conditions were met. Gulf News drew the same distinction between what Washington described and what Tehran has acknowledged. In the same news cycle CBS reported Trump saying he would make a “big decision” on whether to “annihilate” Iran’s leadership, and CNBC, citing Axios and three unnamed sources, reported he plans to meet GCC leaders in New York on Tuesday.

The war’s one ostensibly countable quantity does not resolve either. For the same waterway in the same fortnight, IMF PortWatch logged eight transits on 13 September against a pre-crisis baseline of 85 a day; Windward counted twelve on 16 September, double the previous day’s six, including three VLCCs crossing dark and inbound; Kpler recorded six vessels on a Wednesday, eleven the Tuesday and five the Monday, on a ten-day average of thirteen; TankerMap logged a single tanker transit in its latest complete UTC day. Reuters simply reported that crossings “remain in single digits.” Against all of them, Al Jazeera reported on 3 September that Trump says the United States is helping around thirty ships cross daily, while tracking data suggests the number is far fewer. CENTCOM has held two positions in one week: its spokesman told Al Jazeera the blockade is “highly effective”; RFE/RL reported CENTCOM on 16 September saying Hormuz “remains open.” Windward’s own finding is the most specific: southern-corridor transits at 16% of pre-war levels, while August crude volumes excluding Iran ran at 45%.

The second chokepoint tells the same story in reverse. AP’s week-marker piece, filed on 18 September, records that the Houthi advance down the Red Sea coast has displaced some 125,000 Yemenis, that the rebels took Mokha and then islands near Bab al-Mandeb — through which some 12% of world trade passes in peacetime — and that they now sit about 32 kilometres from Djibouti. Yet the transit figures Windward supplied for the same piece show daily crossings falling from 35 before the advance to 25 after, and recovering to 45 by Sunday. Prices are no steadier: on Friday 18 September, Fortune printed Brent at $104.33, Transport Topics at $104.07, a Reuters-derived wire at $103.17 and Trading Economics at about $102, with straits.live showing $104.89. Saudi Arabia, whose East-West pipeline was shut on 11 September, has said it can restore half the damaged capacity within days and is moving crude by ship-to-ship transfer off Oman and by shuttle through Hormuz itself.

Assessment: Every party here needs a different number and can obtain one. Washington needs the strait closed enough to justify a blockade and open enough to prove the blockade works, which is how CENTCOM ends up saying both in a week. Tehran needs it closed enough to be leverage. Riyadh needs traffic figures that reassure buyers while it reroutes around its own pipeline. Trackers measuring different corridors, different vessel classes and different UTC days produce honestly divergent counts that then get quoted as though they were the same measurement. Distrust, specifically: straits.live’s composite index, a one-person AI-assisted site that discloses it runs on about $83 a month, though its PortWatch and Windward citations stand; the IRGC’s claim to have struck the tanker Trend, carried only by Iranian state media with no owner or crew confirmation; Trump’s thirty ships; and the Axios meeting, which no government has announced. A claim of direct contact that the other party has not confirmed is not a negotiation. It is a position.