Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent appeared on FNC’s “Fox & Friends” on Monday to lay out the Trump administration’s plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
Bessent explained that some oil passing through the strait was being “unsanctioned,” and he dismissed the threat from Houthis.
“So, first off, there is some movement on the Strait of Hormuz,” FNC host Brian Kilmeade said. “You said 10 ships yesterday, 20 today. Your thoughts about what — how that impacts oil prices.”
Bessent replied, “Well, again, any supply is helpful, and we want to get back to normal. The market is in deficit about 10 to 12 million barrels a day, and we’re making up for that deficit. We’ve supplied — we did — there was the largest strategic petroleum reserve release in history. The IEA coordinated 400 million barrels, and that’s going to be about 4 million a day toward making up the deficit. We’ve unsanctioned Russian and Iranian crude that was already on the water, but no extra money for either one of those regimes. So, the market is well-supplied, and we are seeing more and more ships go through on a daily basis as individual countries cut deals with the Iranian regime for the time being.”
“But over time, the U.S. is going to retake control of the straits, and there will be freedom of navigation, whether it is through U.S. escorts or a multinational escort.”
Kilmeade said, “So, you also — are you concerned at all about the Houthis getting involved? They shelled Israel with two rockets. You worried about the Red Sea?”
“Not as much,” Bessent replied. “The Houthis have been very quiet so far. I think that the shelling was Israel-specific. This time last year, we had a bombing campaign against the Houthis, and they’ve been pretty quiet so far, and I would expect them to likely remain that way.
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