\n After weeks of trying and failing to reopen the critical waterway off the coast of Iran, President Donald Trump has floated a new idea: walk away and let others clean up the mess.\n <\/p>\n
\n Trump told the New York Post<\/a> on Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz will \u201cautomatically open\u201d after the US military exits the war. \u201cLet the countries that are using the strait, let them go and open it,\u201d Trump told the paper.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump has told aides he\u2019s willing to end the US military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, The Wall Street Journal<\/a> reported on Monday.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cGo get your own oil!\u201d Trump wrote in a Truth Social post<\/a> on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n \n Trump told reporters later in the day that gas prices, which hit $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 on Tuesday, would come down soon. \u201cAll I have to do is leave Iran, and we\u2019ll be doing that very soon, and they\u2019ll be come tumbling down,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n \n Yet energy market experts tell CNN that ending the war without reopening the Strait of Hormuz is unlikely to fix the energy crisis.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible idea,\u201d Dan Pickering, founder and chief investment officer at Pickering Energy Partners, told CNN in a phone interview. \u201cThis would be a job half-finished that creates more long-term problems than it solves in the short term.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n While a US exit could cause oil prices to tumble in the near-term, Pickering said he\u2019s \u201cafraid\u201d the world will ultimately pay much more for crude if a \u201cbad actor\u201d like Iran is left in control of the Strait of Hormuz.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to see how throwing in the towel in the strait solves anything. It would basically be surrendering the strait to Iran and guaranteeing higher energy prices because Iran would be free to attack vessels and charge tolls,\u201d Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, said in a phone interview on Tuesday. \u201cIt would be a catastrophic failure.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s possible that Trump floated the idea to persuade allies to step up support to reopen the chokepoint, or even as a head fake before a potential US ground invasion<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Some investors dismissed the talk of the US exiting without reopening the Strait of Hormuz.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis doesn\u2019t add up. It\u2019s a petulant outburst, kind of like crossing your arms when your mom says you can\u2019t go to a party,\u201d said Art Hogan, chief market strategist at B. Riley Financial.\n <\/p>\n \n Oil market veterans stress that the supply disruption \u2013 the biggest on record<\/a> \u2013 requires a resolution to the effective shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world\u2019s oil typically flows.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere is no way to tilt the scales of global economics and pretend it\u2019s not a problem,\u201d said De Haan.\n <\/p>\n \n It\u2019s true that the United States is more insulated than countries in Asia and Europe, which more directly rely on the Strait of Hormuz for oil.\n <\/p>\n \n That\u2019s in part because the United States is the biggest oil producer on the planet, pumping an all-time record of 13.6 million barrels<\/a> per day last year.\n <\/p>\n \n However, the United States is not an island unto itself. Supply disruptions thousands of miles away from middle America are being felt by consumers at the gas pump.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWe\u2019re inextricably linked to the global price,\u201d said Vikas Dwivedi, global oil and gas strategist at Australian investment bank Macquarie Group.\n <\/p>\n \n US refiners don\u2019t rely on domestic oil alone to churn out the gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and other energy products that power the economy. Those decades-old refiners typically blend the very light US oil with heavier crude pumped overseas.\n <\/p>\n \n Hundreds of thousands<\/a> of barrels of foreign oil are imported into the United States each day, mostly along the East and West Coasts.\n <\/p>\n \n And to meet intense internal demand, the United States imports significant amounts of gasoline, jet fuel, diesel and other energy products.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cBoth California and the New York region depend on product imports and will therefore face shortages once Asia and Europe begin to face them,\u201d said Claudio Galimberti, chief economist at research firm Rystad Energy.\n <\/p>\n \n If the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly closed, buyers in Asia, Europe and elsewhere are likely to turn to US barrels.\n <\/p>\n \n The 40-year ban on selling US crude overseas was lifted in late 2015, allowing US oil exports to spike from around 400,000 barrels per day then to about 4 million now, according to federal data<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n However, analysts caution that higher foreign demand could lift US energy prices domestically, further eroding the discount that US oil currently trades at.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cUS producers aren\u2019t going to say, \u2018We can\u2019t give you the oil because we need to keep prices cheap here in the US.\u2019 They will sell that barrel to them every time,\u201d said Bob Yawger, commodity specialist at Mizuho Securities.\n <\/p>\n \n If Iran keeps control of the Strait of Hormuz, investors would continue to view the trade chokepoint as dangerous and uncertain.\n <\/p>\n \n To compensate for that risk, they\u2019d demand an extra return \u2014 known as a geopolitical risk premium \u2014 that would keep upward pressure on prices around the world, including at US gas pumps.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThere would be a significant geopolitical risk filtering through the market because Iran could do it again,\u201d said Andy Lipow, president of US-based consulting firm Lipow Oil Associates.\n <\/p>\n \n Perhaps all of this explains why Trump signaled as recently as Monday morning that reopening the Strait of Hormuz is a major priority.\n <\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/gettyimages-2268685322.jpg\")
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