Trump Plots How to Escort Ships Through Strait of Hormuz as Oil Jumps Past $100 Per Barrel

(AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez)

President Donald Trump is preparing to announce multiple countries have formed a coalition with the United States to escort ships through the Strait of Hormuz, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday night.

The report was published right around when futures markets started trading at 6:00 p.m. ET. The price for a barrel of Brent crude oil jumped 2% soon afterwards to eclipse $100 again — trading for nearly $101 per barrel after about an hour.

That comes after a wild stretch for oil prices last week, where barrels traded for more than $110 on March 9 before dropping to to the mid-$80s last Tuesday and Wednesday. The price for a barrel was $67.02 the day before the U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamanei and dozens of other Iranian leaders on Feb. 28.

The recent spike in gas prices has led the Trump Administration to look at how to keep traffic moving through the Strait of Hormuz, where roughly 20% of the world’s oil travels through.

Sunday’s WSJ report said several countries have agreed to Trump’s plan for escorting ships, but are still discussing “whether those operations would begin before or after hostilities end.” The Trump Administration could announce the group as early as this week, but many countries have been “noncommittal to such an escort mission until hostilities cease,” the report said.

Trump last week called on ships to “show some guts” and move through the Strait, but Iran retaliated by striking multiple vessels. The president then warned Iran it would face an assault “at a level never seen before” if it mined the Strait. 

He has also urged allies like France and the United Kingdom to send warships to the Strait to police it. But former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) had a different plan that he shared on Sunday: the U.S. should drop a dozen nuclear bombs on the Strait, which he said will easily clear it out.

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