Trump: Syria is promoting itself as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, and this is "great"

Washington, Agencies: U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that “Syria is promoting itself as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz,” describing it as “great.” In a post on his Truth Social platform, the U.S. president shared a Washington Post investigation regarding Damascus’s aspiration to turn the Strait of Hormuz crisis into a “blessing” for Syria, commenting on it by saying, “This is great.” The Washington Post report viewed the closure of shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz during the war as a “blessing” for Syria, which is preparing to capitalize on the need for alternative oil transit routes. More than 18 months after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, Syria is poised to benefit from the lifting of international sanctions and the ongoing conflict in the vital Strait of Hormuz region, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil supplies pass. According to the Washington Post, thanks to its strategic location on the Mediterranean Sea at the port of Baniyas, Syria, under its new president Ahmad al-Sharaa, is seeking to present itself as a relatively stable land corridor for energy and goods, and as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz. International governments and energy suppliers have already begun to engage, with trucks moving between oil refineries in southern Iraq and the Syrian port of Baniyas, initially as an experiment by Iraqi oil exporters seeking to bypass the Strait of Hormuz after shipping halted in the waterway. Last July, the Trump administration, which championed the “badge” project, announced its support for a new pipeline led by Chevron, which would transport two million barrels of crude oil daily from Basra in southern Iraq to Baniyas, following the same route currently used by trucks transporting fuel oil across the desert. When the White House unveiled the pipeline project with senior Syrian and Iraqi officials, Trump’s special envoy, Tom Barrack, said in a statement that it would help make the Strait of Hormuz “secondary.”