"This is fantastic!" — Trump praises idea of routing Gulf oil through Syria

U.S. President Donald Trump has backed the possibility of using the Syrian route as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz.

"This is fantastic!" Trump wrote on the social network Truth Social.

This was his comment on an article in the Washington Post stating that Syria could become a new transit corridor for oil and goods from the Persian Gulf, bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.

According to the newspaper, some 5,000 trucks carrying oil from the Persian Gulf are already traveling around the clock across the Syrian desert toward the Mediterranean Sea. At the same time, Syria wants to become a transit hub not only for oil and gas, but also for other cargo, the WP writes.

In addition, a $5.7 billion Chevron project supported by the Trump administration provides for the construction of an oil pipeline from Basra in Iraq to the Syrian port of Banias with a capacity of about 2 million barrels per day, which would allow oil to be shipped via the Mediterranean Sea, the article says.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the day before that in two years the Strait of Hormuz will be a useless stretch of water. The American leader, meanwhile, claimed that after the victory over Iran he would declare Hormuz U.S. territory.

The Strait of Hormuz is of strategic importance for the global energy market. Before the situation escalated, about a fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supplies were transported through it.

In recent days, the intensity of shipping along this route has declined significantly: the number of vessels passing through the strait has fallen to single-digit figures, and large oil tankers and gas carriers have practically stopped using it.