Nearly half a year into the US-Iran war, global oil stockpiles are rapidly diminishing as traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains effectively stalled and the two powers at the center of the hostilities argue about who controls the critical waterway.

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly insisted that the strait – through which oil flows from countries like Saudi Arabia and Iraq to the rest of the world – is under US control.

“They don’t have control. We have total control. We own it, and at some point, maybe they’ll do something, and then they get blown away,” Trump told reporters on Wednesday. “Right now, we’re in a very good position.” And earlier Wednesday, he claimed the US Navy had swept the strait for mines.

But Iran says it won’t reopen the strait fully until the US meets its conditions.

The reality is far more complicated than Trump’s proclamation of control, experts say – with ships fearing for their safety amid attacks on vessels in the strait, and the ever-looming threat of US-Iran strikes resuming.

Is the strait open, or closed?

A missile fired by the Iranian navy in an unknown location, in a still image taken from a video released on May 8, 2026.

Wana News Agency/Reuters

The US naval blockade of Iran is still in effect, barring ships from going to or from any Iranian port either inside or outside the strait. This has strangled Iran’s cashflow and closed the strait to Iranian maritime trade.

There is still some traffic going through the Persian Gulf, headed to non-Iranian destinations. But that traffic is still just a fraction of pre-war levels. For instance, only 14 vessels crossed the strait on Tuesday – compared with the roughly 120 ships that used to cross daily before the war.

That’s largely because “few merchant shipping companies and their ships are confident that the US can ensure their safe transit of the strait,” said Carl Schuster, former director of the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center.

Besides outright attacks, Iran can also harass ships by flying drones overhead and doing “targeted surveillance of merchant shipping,” said the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) in a recent advisory.

Since the war began, there have been 54 reports of damage to vessels in the strait, or the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman which sit either side of it, according to UKMTO, a Royal Navy-affiliated body that monitors maritime security and shipping in the region.

There have also been three confirmed total losses of vessels, it said, and 13 near misses.