Strait of Hormuz will be 'worthless' within two years, says US Treasury chief Bessent

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has declared that the Strait of Hormuz will soon be worthless as an oil conduit due to the development of new export pipelines by other countries. Speaking at the G20 finance ministers meeting in North Carolina, Bessent announced that the US is expected to announce actions against banks linked to the Iranian regime in the coming two weeks as part of efforts to squeeze the regime's economy.

He stated that Iran is attempting to use the strait as a choke point during the conflict with the US, but it poses a significant threat to numerous other nations. Bessent predicts that within two years, the Strait of Hormuz will become a useless body of water, with oil being transported via land pipelines instead. Last month, he had told a news station in Arizona that the strait would never revert to its previous state and estimated that up to 70 percent of the energy typically passing through the waterway would now flow through land-based pipelines.

Shipping through the strait has declined since the US and Israel initiated military actions against Iran on February 28, though it has begun to recover in recent weeks but still lags far behind pre-conflict levels. Bessent has been engaging in talks with his counterparts in Asheville to garner global support for isolating Iran's economy.

The Trump administration has recently expanded the scope of secondary sanctions that can be imposed on countries and businesses dealing with the regime and threatened to cut off access to the dollar system for those who comply. Bessent emphasized that the economic consequences are a direct result of the initial military success.