Energy Secretary Stunned by Trump’s “Secret Mission” in Iran War

“You know 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 said. “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.”

It’s no secret that some ships have been able to exit through the Strait of Hormuz. Last week, a U.S. defense official told CNBC that the U.S. was coordinating with ships seeking passage through the Strait of Hormuz, but was not escorting vessels. Lloyd’s List Intelligence reported last week that roughly 40 ships stranded in the Persian Gulf have been able to exit the strait.

The numbers Trump is claiming would indicate clandestine energy flows of a far larger scale, but it’s worth noting that before the U.S. attacked Iran, an average of 20 million barrels of oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz every day. That means the transit of more than two billion barrels of oil has been stalled in the 103 days since the U.S. and Israel first launched military strikes against Iran.