FACT CHECK: Trump says more oil flows through Hormuz than before the war, the data say 82%

The sentence

Donald Trump wrote on Thursday. Iran is “making up fake attacks, mines, and everything else.”

The reason? Because “more oil is coming through the Strait of Hormuz than before the conflict started.”

The sentence is precise. It is checkable. It compares two numbers. Before the war. After it. Two columns.

The market answered the next day. Brent settled at $116.72. Highest since April 29. Six months. A wartime record.

A president says everything gets through. Traders pay as if nothing did. One of the two is wrong.

The side

The Iranian regime is the adversary. It mines a strait. It hits tankers. Sailors die. Nothing here excuses it.

But a fact check does not choose its result. It counts.

A president on our side rounds a number up. We say so. With the exact number.

A president who claims more oil is passing through Hormuz while the barrel hits a peak raises a question of numbers.

Here are the numbers. They come from ships. Not from speeches.

The strait is at 82%, not above 100.

The October 22 post

The text is on Truth Social. Thursday, October 22. Iran is doing “everything” to push the price up. Before the midterms. That is his thesis.

Then: “They are even making up fake attacks, mines, and everything else.” The reason follows.

More oil is coming through Hormuz “than before the war started,” in his words.

Three claims. Iran manipulates. The attacks are fake. The flow exceeds prewar. Three sentences. Three tests.

The first is an intention. It cannot be checked. The other two are facts. They can. One by one.

The context of the post

The same day, the Revolutionary Guards claim seven incidents. Four ships hit. Three on mines. None is corroborated. CBS notes it.

Brent touches $112 Thursday morning. Highest since May 18. The president writes right after. The price came first.

He adds a line out loud.

“The Strait of Hormuz is ours, and that’s the way we’re going to keep it.” His phrase. His tone. His strait.

A strait one claims to own and calls more open than before should produce a falling barrel, and the barrel has risen for three weeks.

The post targets voters. The data target something else.

The overall number

Kpler tracks ships by satellite. Week ending October 18: more than 24.5 million barrels a day. Excluding Iran. All routes combined.

The week before the war, the one ending February 22: 24.4 million. So the total exceeds prewar. Barely. But it does.

On that point, Trump is right. Gulf exports are back to their level. The figures are preliminary. They hold.

The oil gets out. The question is how. By which door. It changes everything. It changes the number.

The strait’s number

The total counts four routes. The Strait of Hormuz. Ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman.

The terminals at Fujairah and in Oman. The Red Sea.

Through Hormuz alone, the average flow is about 14 million barrels a day.

That is 82% of the prewar level. The Wall Street Journal and Al-Monitor cite the same Kpler.

Eighty-two percent. Not one hundred. Not above one hundred. The strait has not recovered its flow. Far from it. Eighteen points short.

Saying more oil passes through Hormuz, when Hormuz is at 82% and the rest goes around, confuses the strait with the region.

The oil goes around. It does not go through more.

Nineteen a day against more than one hundred

Count another way. In ships. Not in barrels. Before February 28, more than 100 commercial vessels crossed Hormuz every day.

Oil and fertilizers. Refined products too. Every day.

In the last ten days, about 19 a day. The figure is Kpler’s. It is in The National. Nineteen ships. A day. Under escort.

Five times fewer ships. The tankers are bigger. They sail escorted. They carry more. But there are fewer of them. Five times fewer.

A strait that sees 19 ships a day instead of 100 is not more open than before, whatever the tanks contain.

Nineteen against one hundred. The count is done.

What Lloyd’s List counts

Lloyd’s List keeps another register. Transits not linked to Iran. Week by week.

Week of September 21 to 27: 124 transits. The week before: 122.

All of September: at least 477 transits. The record since the war began. The word record is theirs. Not ours.

But the same brief says it. The situation “is not normal.”

The workarounds cost more. More than seven months ago. A handful of owners hold the market.

A wartime record is still a wartime number. One hundred twenty-four a week is fewer than eighteen a day.

The record is real. It is small.

What is claimed

On Thursday, the Guards speak. Four ships hit, they say. Three more on mines.

On the southern route. Near Oman. The one Washington recommends. The safe route, in theory.

None of the seven is confirmed. CBS says so. One source only. Iranian state television.

It lies often. It lied in March. In July too.

On these seven incidents, Trump may be right. The doubt is legitimate. It is even healthy. So far, agreed.

But the sentence says “fake mines, and everything else.” It generalizes. There, the data take the floor again. They are stubborn.

What is counted

The International Maritime Organization has counted. 116 attacks on ships through October 20. Twenty-four deaths since the war began. Twenty-four families.

Lloyd’s List adds. At least 13 attacks on tankers or gas carriers since September 28. A seven-month high. Not a low.

The Joint Maritime Information Center rules. Threat “severe.” Hostile action “highly likely.”

Those are not Iranian words. Those are insurers’ words.

Twenty-four dead sailors and 116 attacks counted by the IMO are not inventions from Tehran, and the president knows it.

Thursday’s seven attacks are doubtful, the 116 before them are counted.

Two attacks in one Wednesday

On Wednesday, a drone hits the Shaybah field. In the Saudi east. Two dead. Two injured. State media confirm it.

The same day, King Fahd International Airport. In Dammam. At least two dead. Eight injured. A civilian airport.

The Houthis, Tehran’s allies, run the campaign. They have struck Saudi Arabia for weeks. From the air. By drone.

Saudi oil leaves through Yanbu. The drones, meanwhile, come in from the east. The map is clear.

Aramco leaves its headquarters

Saudi Aramco asked its staff to evacuate the Dhahran headquarters. To work remotely. Reuters reports it.

The State Department orders non-essential personnel out. Of all of Saudi Arabia. Because of the strikes. This week.

The world’s top exporter empties its headquarters. Its protector pulls its diplomats. The barrel rises. It has its reasons.

An evacuated Aramco headquarters and a civilian airport struck in the same week explain the barrel better than a line about an open strait.

The market watches Dhahran. Not Truth Social.

October’s curve

Brent was worth less than $97. Early October. Thursday, 112. Friday, nearly 117. Settlement at 116.72.

Up 6.2% on the week. Third straight weekly gain. U.S. WTI settled at $103.27. Above 100. Once again.

A market that believed the president would sell. It buys. It has bought for three weeks. Every day. Always upward.

The price is a vote. It happens every day. It does not know November 3.

What the market anticipates

Traders expect the strikes. American ones. In the coming weeks. After the vote. CNBC sums it up that way. In one line.

The International Monetary Fund goes further. If the war continues, the average barrel would be $130 in 2027.

Iraq would shrink by about 16%. Kuwait too. Qatar too.

Saudi Arabia and the Emirates would be in recession. The same countries Washington protects. The same ones that go around. The same ones that pay.

A $117 barrel rising for three weeks says the market does not believe in the president’s strait.

The price ruled before we did.

The East-West pipeline

Amin Nasser runs Saudi Aramco. He gives a number.

The East-West pipeline went from 2 to 7 million barrels a day. More than tripled.

It runs from the eastern fields to the Yanbu terminal. On the Red Sea. Built in the early 1980s. It has never carried so much.

Kpler estimates it another way. In September, 40% of non-Iranian Gulf crude avoided Hormuz. Before the war: 17%. More than double.

The oil leaves through the window. The door stays half shut.

What it proves

The real feat is not the strait. It is the workaround. It is real.

Some pipelines. Some terminals. Transfers at sea. And costly American escorts.

The U.S. Navy escorts tankers. Along the southern route. Volumes rise. So does the cost. CBS notes it.

Trump could say that. It would be accurate. It would even be to his credit. He chose to say something else.

A president who could claim a successful workaround and prefers to claim a reopened strait trades a solid fact for a fragile line.

The truth was available. It was even flattering.

What CENTCOM holds

U.S. Central Command blockades Iranian ports. For months now. It has diverted 130 merchant vessels. The number is its own. It is public.

The blockade holds. Waltz says so. “For the foreseeable future.” The pressure tightens. It is one of the few levers that bite. It bites hard.

We support it. A regime that mines a strait deserves a blockade. The lever is just. It is costly. Both are true.

The blockade closes Iranian ports. The mines close half the strait. The two closures add up. On the price. On your price.

The ghost fleet recycled

Washington is preparing a measure. Letting sanctioned ships through the strait. To raise flows. The National describes it. In detail.

Investors would buy idle sanctioned tankers. Refurbish them. Carry legal oil. The “shadow fleet” would switch sides.

The idea says one thing. Ships are lacking. Otherwise nobody would recycle sanctioned vessels.

A government that wants to rehabilitate sanctioned tankers to move more oil is not describing a strait already more open than before.

You do not recruit ghosts when the living suffice.

What the plans say

Two Israeli sources speak to ABC. The plans exist. Israel and the United States hold them.

Joint strikes “in the coming weeks.” Almost certainly after November 3. Not before.

The targets: petrochemical facilities. Nuclear sites, including Pickaxe Mountain. Not the power plants, one source says. Not this time.

The Israeli goal is clear. Not a deal. Regime change. “The only question is when.”

Pete Hegseth was in Israel. The plans were discussed. This week. No public announcement. No photo.

What the White House answers

Anna Kelly, spokeswoman, is blunt. “The United States will not attack Iran at any point before the midterm elections.”

Another official declines to comment. On plans “that may or may not exist.” Trump “retains all options.” The Pentagon stays silent. As always.

Trump himself, Wednesday evening: “I don’t think we’re negotiating.” Something will happen “fairly soon.” Most people think “after the election.”

A White House that promises not to strike before the vote and plans ready for the following week explain the barrel better.

The market read ABC. Not Truth Social.

Trump’s veto

NPR has the detail. From a briefed source. Israel wanted to strike in mid-October. Two weeks before its October 27 elections. The timing spoke.

Trump said no. He objected. American forces are gathering. For early November. After the 3rd. Not before.

Netanyahu is campaigning. On toppling the Iranian regime. His calendar is not Washington’s. Washington imposed its own. For once.

A president who holds back an impatient ally for three weeks performs an act of control. We note it. To his credit. In full measure.

The Iranian threat

Tehran answers. Abbas Araghchi: “We are just as prepared for diplomacy as we are for war.” Any scenario is “conceivable.” Even the worst.

The Guards threaten. Data centers. The Gulf’s undersea cables. Yadollah Javani speaks of destroying the cables under Hormuz.

“The Americans must leave the region,” he says. They “no longer have a place here.” The regime talks loud. It hits tankers. It threatens cables.

A regime that promises to cut the cables under a strait a president says he owns reminds us that ownership is measured in ships passed.

The cables are underwater. So are the mines.

What Waltz admits

Mike Waltz is ambassador to the UN. He speaks to the Financial Times. He speaks frankly.

The war could last another year. Twelve more months. At least.

Trump had announced “four to five weeks.” On February 28. It is late October. Eight months. Thirty-four weeks.

Waltz sets the conditions. Highly enriched uranium first. Iran must give it up.

And accept a “meaningful” deal on enrichment. Otherwise, nothing is achieved. Nothing at all.

The blockade can hold “for the foreseeable future.” Economic pressure keeps “tightening.” Those are his words. Not ours.

What it changes for the strait

One more year. One year of 19 ships a day. One year of escorts.

One year of a pipeline at 7 million. One year of a barrel above 100. One year of expensive fill-ups.

The blockade is a good lever. It weakens the regime. We support it. In full.

But it has a price. It shows at the pump. At yours.

Saying the strait flows more than before erases that price. It does not erase the bill. It comes anyway. Every week. At the pump.

A war promised in five weeks and now in its thirty-fourth is not told with an open strait, but with 116 attacks.

Time is the real number.

Three claims, three answers

“More oil passes through Hormuz than before.” False. For the strait. Hormuz is at 82%.

Accurate for the whole region. At 24.5 million against 24.4. Just barely.

“Fake attacks, mines.” Unverified for Thursday’s seven.

False as a generalization. The IMO counts 116 attacks and 24 deaths. It does not invent them.

“Iran is doing everything to push the price up.” Probably true. But unverifiable. And the market rises mostly on plans for American strikes.

One sentence in three holds. One in three is false. One in three is an intention. The tally is done.

What you should remember

You pay for the barrel at 117. Not the one in the speech.

The gap between 82% and more than 100% is your fill-up. Every week.

The workaround is a success. The blockade is a lever.

The strait stays half shut. All three are accurate. At the same time. Side by side.

A president can say all three. He chose only one. The false one. That is a pity.

A leader who stands up to Tehran and restrains Jerusalem does not need to round a strait up past one hundred, the 82% was enough.

The oil goes around Hormuz, it does not go through more than before.

Trump says more oil flows through Hormuz than before the war, and the data say 82%.

And you, at $116 a barrel, do you believe the president’s strait or the one with 19 ships a day?

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.