Trump Privately Willing to End Iran War — Without Securing Strait of Hormuz: WSJ

AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein

President Donald Trump has privately told aides he is willing to wind down the U.S. military operation against Iran without securing the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday night.

Administration officials told the newspaper that the president concluded that forcing the strategic waterway back open would extend the conflict beyond his preferred four-to-six-week timeline. Instead, the White House is reportedly prioritizing degrading Iran’s naval capacity and missile stockpiles before scaling back operations and shifting to diplomatic pressure.

The decision would leave Tehran in effective control of the chokepoint, The Journal noted, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply normally passes.

Senior officials indicated that if diplomacy fails, the U.S. would push European and Gulf allies to take the lead in restoring passage through the strait.

The position underscores a pattern of mixed messaging from the president, who has alternated between threatening to strike Iranian energy infrastructure if Hormuz is not reopened and downplaying the strait’s importance to the U.S. economy, framing its closure as a problem for other nations.

Energy supply disruptions, meanwhile, have pushed oil prices above $100 a barrel, with analysts warning they could climb far higher if the closure persists. In the U.S., gas prices pushed past $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022.

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