Vice President JD Vance declared Thursday that Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz is “effectively gone” and the strategic waterway is becoming a “diminishing asset,” pointing to surging oil flows as U.S. forces keep shipping lanes open and repeatedly destroy capabilities Tehran attempts to rebuild around them.
Speaking during a White House press briefing, Vance said Iran is “losing their capabilities by the day” and increasingly confronting the reality that it can no longer wield Hormuz as it did earlier in the conflict.
“I think they’re realizing that their control over the Strait of Hormuz is effectively gone, and it’s a diminishing asset,” he said.
Vance pointed to the sharp turnaround in energy traffic through the waterway, contrasting current conditions with three months ago, when he said virtually no oil and gas was moving through the Strait under Iranian threats.
Some 15 million barrels passed through Hormuz Wednesday night alone, he said, crediting the United States with keeping the energy flowing despite Tehran’s efforts to disrupt commercial shipping.
“Last night, 15 million barrels came out of the Strait of Hormuz,” Vance said. “That’s because of the United States of America.”
The increase follows a major breakthrough last week in the U.S. campaign to secure the Strait, when U.S. Central Command announced that American forces had cleared Iranian sea mines from the internationally recognized shipping lanes in what officials described as a “watershed moment.”
CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper called the operation a “major milestone,” saying the lanes were free of Iranian mines and that “international shipping lanes are open and momentum is building.”
U.S. forces had already helped nearly 1,500 commercial vessels carrying roughly 750 million barrels of crude oil move through Hormuz under American protection by the time of Cooper’s announcement.
Iran then attempted to restore some of the leverage it had lost.
U.S. forces struck two IRGC launchers Sunday after observing Iranian forces preparing rockets carrying sea mines for deployment into the Strait, enforcing President Donald Trump’s warning that any renewed attempt to mine the waterway would be met with immediate military action.
The confrontation escalated further Tuesday, when the United States carried out a much broader round of strikes after additional Iranian attacks and threats against commercial shipping and American forces.
CENTCOM said the operation targeted Iranian air-defense and radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites. U.S. officials said the strikes substantially degraded Tehran’s ability to threaten vessels moving through Hormuz and bought commercial shipping at least another month of reduced threat levels.
Trump said Thursday that Iran had already tried to replace some of what the United States destroyed — only to have the new equipment struck again.
“They just put new radar in,” Trump told GB News.
“We control the Hormuz Strait. We have great control over the Hormuz Strait,” he added.
Trump has repeatedly asserted U.S. control over Hormuz since the mine-clearing operation, while warning Tehran that Washington will continue destroying systems it attempts to restore around the waterway.
That pressure is increasingly producing a stark divide in the Strait: oil from other Gulf states continues moving through Hormuz under American protection while the U.S. blockade constricts Iran’s own exports and access to the revenue they provide.
Reuters reported Thursday, citing three senior Iranian sources, that the blockade has “entirely cut off Tehran’s main source of revenue,” while the administration’s broader economic offensive has left the regime with dwindling avenues to obtain foreign currency, finance trade or sustain the networks it has relied upon to evade sanctions.
Iranian crude loadings have plunged to roughly 260,000 barrels per day this month from around 1.7 million barrels per day a year ago, according to the outlet, while total trade has fallen an estimated 25 to 35 percent.
The rial has meanwhile collapsed to more than 2.2 million to the dollar, with official average inflation approaching 70 percent.
The senior Iranian sources described efforts to cut Tehran off from international financing as a “real and urgent threat,” with one saying the country may have only about two months of gasoline supplies remaining.
The squeeze comes as the administration continues expanding Operation Economic Outcast, the campaign launched last week to sever Iran’s remaining financial links abroad while the naval blockade restricts its ability to move oil and other goods physically.
CENTCOM said Thursday that forces enforcing the blockade have now redirected 87 commercial vessels, disabled three and boarded two to ensure compliance.
Trump tied the military and economic pressure together Thursday while describing Iran’s position.
“So we control the Hormuz Strait, and their economy is crashing,” he said. “Their money is valueless. So they’re in big trouble.”
Tehran suffered another setback Thursday in its effort to preserve influence over how Hormuz is managed, with Oman reportedly rejecting an Iranian proposal to jointly collect service fees from vessels passing through the Strait.
Muscat declined even voluntary payments for environmental and security services, the New York Post reported, dealing a blow to a proposal the Trump administration had treated as a red line.
Trump had repeatedly warned against any arrangement that would allow Tehran to collect fees from commercial shipping through Hormuz.
The report also contradicted an earlier claim by an IRGC spokesman that Iran and Oman had reached agreements over their respective shares of the Strait’s waters and revenues. A U.S. official had previously told the outlet that no such revenue-sharing agreement had been finalized.
Washington is meanwhile looking beyond the immediate battle for the waterway, backing potential energy routes that could further reduce the leverage Iran derives from Hormuz.
Trump on Thursday highlighted a Washington Post report on a proposed energy corridor through Syria that could eventually carry roughly two million barrels of oil per day from Iraq to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Strait.
“This is GREAT!” Trump wrote.
Trump envoy Tom Barrack has previously said such a route could eventually make Hormuz “an afterthought.”
Iranian officials, meanwhile, are threatening increasingly asymmetric means of retaliation as U.S. pressure erodes Tehran’s ability to control conventional traffic through the Strait.
Iranian First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said Thursday that the renewed U.S. attacks had changed the country’s “security equations and defense doctrine,” warning that Tehran’s response would now be “asymmetric,” “multi-layered” and “security-depriving for the aggressor.”
“Americans should start thinking about stockpiling gasoline and fuel,” Aref warned. “Dark months await the American economy.”
Vance offered his own advice to Tehran as Iranian forces continue attacking commercial shipping.
“My advice to the Iranians is to stop acting like crazy people and stop shooting at commercial shipping,” he said.
Vance reiterated that Washington will not resume negotiations while those attacks continue, reinforcing Trump’s increasingly dismissive posture toward another agreement with Tehran.
“The president’s been very clear. We’re not talking to them,” Vance said. “And we’re not going to talk to them unless they stop shooting at commercial shipping.”
Trump said Tuesday that an agreement with Iran “isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” adding that Washington had already given Tehran “a lot of chances.” He went further later that night, saying he “couldn’t care less” whether Tehran signs what he called a “worthless” agreement.
Vance said the administration’s immediate priority is maintaining the free flow of commercial shipping through Hormuz — something U.S. forces have increasingly accomplished by clearing Iranian mines, enforcing the blockade and protecting vessels transiting the strategic waterway.
“If we don’t do it, nobody else would do it,” Vance said. “And if nobody else did it, we would have a catastrophic world energy crisis.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.