Energy Secretary Chris Wright said on Sunday there were “no guarantees” that oil prices would fall in the coming weeks, despite President Trump’s having vowed repeatedly that the United States will try to force Iran to stop attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.
“There’s no guarantees in wars at all,” Mr. Wright said in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” “I can guarantee the situation would be dramatically worse without this military operation to defang the Iranian regime.”
“Right now, our focus is destroying their military capabilities, including those that are used specifically to threaten the straits,” he added. “But we need to finish those tasks first, and you will see the straits open again in the not-too-distant future.”
The Iranian military has been carrying out projectile attacks against tankers in the area, setting ships ablaze and sending the price of crude oil surging on world markets. It has also begun laying mines in the strait, despite the U.S. military’s having destroyed some Iranian naval vessels capable of that type of operation. Mr. Wright said in another interview on Sunday that the strait was not safe for tanker passage. “No, it is not,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
About 20 percent of the world’s oil goes through the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
At a later point in the ABC News interview, Mr. Wright expressed some confidence that the United States would be able to secure the Strait of Hormuz within weeks.
“Yeah, I think that this conflict will certainly come to the end in the next few weeks,” he said, adding that the war could also end sooner than that. “We’ll see a rebound in supplies and a pushing down of prices after that.”
He said the administration was “very aware” that the world “would have short-term disruption” as a result of the war that the United States and Israel started against Iran on Feb. 28. “We would cause a little bit of increased prices on Americans,” he added, noting that “this is short-term pain to get through to a much better place.”
Mr. Wright also rebutted criticism from Democratic lawmakers and others who say the Trump administration did not plan sufficiently for Iran to stop oil tanker traffic through the strait.
“Of course meticulous planning went into what might happen with the Strait of Hormuz, how to deal with that,” he said. “Our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Caine, is known for many things, but high on that list is an absolute meticulous planner of all of the scenarios that might unfold.”
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that Mr. Trump and his advisers miscalculated the scope of Iran’s retaliations — it has carried out missile and drone attacks for the past two weeks across the Middle East, widening the war and disrupting the economy — and its ability to bring traffic in the Strait of Hormuz to a halt.
Mr. Wright deflected a question on which other countries might send warships to help escort tankers through the strait, as Mr. Trump has promised would happen. Mr. Trump listed China, France, Japan and South Korea last week.
“All nations of the world depend on products that come from the Straits of Hormuz,” Mr. Wright said, without mentioning any commitments from other nations to send escort ships.
Iran appears to be allowing some tankers to pass through the strait, including ones carrying oil to China, U.S. officials said.
Edward Wong reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department for The Times.
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