Energy Secretary Wright says U.S. 'not ready' to escort tankers through Strait of Hormuz yet

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: CNBC

Published Thu, Mar 12 2026 7:50 AM EDT Updated 8 Min Ago


The U.S. Navy is not ready to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC in an interview Thursday. “It’ll happen relatively soon but it can’t happen now,” Wright said. “We’re simply not ready. All of our military assets right now are focused on destroying Iran’s offensive capabilities and the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities.”

Wright said it is likely that the Navy will be in a position to escort tankers by the end of this month. “I’ll be over at the Pentagon later today — that is what the military is working on,” the Energy secretary said.

Brent oil prices, the international benchmark, touched $100 per barrel earlier Thursday as attacks on commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf continue.

Wright’s comments come after a post on his social media account wrongly claimed on Tuesday that the Navy had escorted a tanker through the Strait. The post was quickly deleted from his account, but it sent oil prices plunging more than 17% at their lows Tuesday.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/03/12/energy-secretary-wright-says-us-not-ready-to-escort-tankers-through-strait-of-hormuz-yet.html

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“It’ll happen relatively soon but it can’t happen now,” Wright said. “We’re simply not ready.

It's NOT going to happen "soon" because it's NOT going to happen "at all". There are not enough ships to do anything of the sort and they are ALL vulnerable to drone swarms. There are no Patriot Missile interceptors aboard ships.

I expect this is why they are testing those lasers.

[tanyev]

1. Gosh, it's like you can't believe anything Trump says.

[EX500rider]

2. The Navy has 76 operational Destroyers

And the Destroyers don't need Patriot missiles for slow moving drones or cruise missiles.

The RIM-162 Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles (ESSM), Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), and SM-6 , alongside the Phalanx Close-In Weapon System (CIWS) and 5-inch guns ought to be enough.

[flashman13]

12. Enough unless the Iranians launch a mass drone swarm and the ship runs out of ammunition before the

Iranians run out of drones. They of course could launch a swarm of small attack boats simultaneously with the air drones to attack the Navy ship and the tanker. Or they could fire off a dozen water skimming anti ship missiles that are hidden all along the coast in caves and fishing hovels. Or they could fill the Straits with assorted sea mines for which we lack the mine sweeper capability to remove (At this very moment the Navy is decommissioning multiple mine sweepers. Who would have thought we might need them?). Mine sweepers don't have defensive capabilities.

The reality is that none of those 76 destroyers are available. The very few that are in the vicinity of Iran are busy making sure the Iranians don't blow up a carrier. The rest are scattered across the world or are in port in various stages of readiness. To gather destroyers for escort duty would mean denuding other fleet assets of their protection.

Let's cut to the chase. Reality is a mother and we couldn't escort tankers if we wanted to. In the early 1980s, in the face of 1980s technology, we managed to escort one tanker a day. Right now there are 200+ tankers waiting in line. You can do the math.

Unlike us, Iran has been planning for this confrontation for decades. We don't have so much as a bar napkin sketch of a concept of a plan. Iran owns the Straits of Hormuz and we can't do anything about it.

[EX500rider]

14. Wait another week or two other countries wil be stepping into escort their own tankers

They don't have a lot of choice,
It's either that or watch their economies collapse, India Pakistan South Korea and Japan even China all need that oil to flow

[flashman13]

20. No they won't. The military situation is the same for everyone. Iran owns the Straits of Hormuz.

However, that being said, nothing prevents other countries from striking deals with Iran to allow their ships to transit the Straits. The Iranians have given their own ships and Chinese ships safe passage through the Straits. Of course those ships are loading Iranian oil. The rest of the Gulf states are under the guns of the Iranians and are shut down for the immediate future.

Your pun for the day: Iran is in the driver's seat.

[EX500rider]

22. " No they won't." Pakistan already announced they are

And i don't think the others will be far behind.

They will be in a "Damn the torpedos!" moment when power plants & gas stations & factories & hospitals/ambulances/firetrucks all start to run out of fuel.


...as of March 9, 2026, the Pakistan Navy has launched a maritime security operation named Operation Muhafiz-ul-Bahr (Protector of the Seas) to escort Pakistani-flagged merchant vessels and tankers through critical maritime routes, including the Strait of Hormuz, amid escalating Middle East tensions

[flashman13]

31. There are two possibilities here. They have already cut a deal with Iran or their ships will be sunk.

Either way, it is still Iran's call.

[EX500rider]

32. Or Iran will add one more country they are at war with

[EX500rider]

24. "The reality is that none of those 76 destroyers are available." They can be.

About a 1/3 will be in port for service etc.

We have 3 carrier groups near the area, figure 2 to 3 for them, so 9.
That should leave 40+-

Have the rest of the carrier groups home port for now and send their DD's to the Gulf.
Have enough air cover over the coast where any launcher gets 1 or 2 shots of before it is a hole in the ground.
The drones are slow enough for the 5"'s and the CIWS + air support & the Sea Sparrow's.
The speed boats are just target practice.

Mines will be the bigger threat.

Still take some time for the DD's to arrive of course.

[flashman13]

37. So your answer is to provide more targets. Numbers and brute force can not negate the defensive

advantage of modern technologies. This is especially true when dealing with a situation in the extremely confined area of the Straits.

As near as I can tell, there are fewer than 40 (maybe as few as 30) destroyers available at this moment capable of taking to sea. Four are with each carrier battle group. That is 16 ships unavailable for escort duty. That leaves 14 to 24 others. The navy would certainly not send all of them to one place.

IMHO The idea that we can pull off some sort of "gutsy" escort service without suffering grievous losses is just magical thinking. If events prove my analysis incorrect, right here on DU, I will man up and admit that EX500rider was right and I was wrong. I truly hope that Trump doesn't put this to the test by sending our sailors in harms way.

[EX500rider]

38. They can also create distance at the narrowst place the straight is 21 Mi wide but the channel runs down the middle

But it is deep almost the full width, have the incoming Channel be right up against the West shore in the shallowest part and then the deeper outgoing vessels slightly out from that should give 15 to 20 miles of intercept range.

Whether the US wants to or not and does or not, other countries whose economies will literally crash without that oil will step in at some point. And then it's a matter of how many countries does Iran want to be at war with.
But time will tell.

[ruet]

43. DE-

LUSION. Even if this fantasy materializes, the US will not be able to provide escorts until the end of March at the earliest. Even then we are talking about 10%, an optimistic estimate, of normal traffic. And if you think we're just going to park warships in the Hormuz narrows, right off the coast of Iran, then it's something worse than delusion.

You read like a Cold War kid flipping through a deck of NATO/Pact aircraft identification cards fantasizing about how great the US military is and what WWIII would look like. This isn't that. I think you should stop posting on the subject.

[EX500rider]

45. Yeah I don't need your permission or approval to post on subjects

You're free to disagree doesn't necessarily make you right though, time will tell.. maybe you should just stop posting on the subject LOL

[henbuck]

34. Nonsense

[Hugin]

3. Why does the DoE have anything to do with escorting tankers?

This guy is covering for Kegsbreath an the toddler who would be king.

[EX500rider]

23. Wouldn't be the 1st time

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanker_war


The United States intervened in the conflict in 1986 to protect Kuwaiti tankers, and engaged in a confrontation with Iran.

"In January 1987, the Kuwaiti government proposed a clever scheme to deter Iranian attacks against their shipping. They asked the United States if they could reflag Kuwaiti tankers as American and receive the protection of the U.S. Navy. The administration of President Ronald Reagan debated this idea but finally agreed to it on March 7, 1987.

[wolfie001]

4. This was posted earlier by someone else but it's an amazing watch, 32 minutes long

This is probably why our navy doesn't have the capability to guarantee safe passage at the moment.

[quakerboy]

10. I wonder

Which country who's name starts with an R would have helped with this. Huh.

[moonscape]

17. Thanks for this. We

knew they were taking out radar, but this watch gave a great overall info and a comprehensive overall sense

[wolfie001]

21. You're welcome

I posted a clip from Hawk on YouTube earlier about the devastation in Tel Aviv. 5-year prison sentence if you film the destruction in "democratic" Israel. Oh really?

[moonscape]

46. I looked at the video

but my Lebanese friend said he thought the clip was in Beirut, It mentioned evacuation orders, looked like south Beirut, and he said he thought the guy on motorcycle said something in Arabic.

[EX500rider]

25. No, the naval vessels rely on their own Aegis Combat System radar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aegis_Combat_System

[wolfie001]

27. Well, the lack of shipping right now is an indication of a breakdown somewhere in the defense chain

Right?

[EX500rider]

28. The US destroyer and mine sweeper vessels will take some time to get there from all around the globe

[Girard442]

5. Do these numbnuts even know what mines are and how they work?

These people learned everything they know by watching "Reacher." He's such a badass that unarmed, he can take down ten guys without breaking a sweat.

Unless...one of them is a scrawny 14-year-old kid standing across the room with a shotgun.

[JohnnyRingo]

6. They say Trump is playing chess and he's six moves ahead of us.

Unfortunately that only applies to dirty campaigning.
When it comes to the economy, homeland security, and war, he's winging it as he goes along. One problem just leads to another.

Top brass and experts at the Pentagon are where war plans are made, but I think this one was plotted out entirely on the Resolution Desk with a Sharpie.

[ananda]

9. More like 3-dimensional tiddly winks...

with only orange pieces.

[JohnnyRingo]

13. LOL! Haven't heard Tiddly Winks in a long time.

I played it when I was a kid, but I was just training for a future in professional Beer Pong.

[ananda]

40. LOL

Mine is professional couch-sittting.

[usonian]

26. They say Trump is playing chess and he's six moves ahead of us. (illustrated)

Six, indeed.

[JohnnyRingo]

33. Stooges

noun
derogatory
a person who serves merely to support or assist others, particularly in doing unpleasant work.
"he seems more like a stooge than a Supreme Jurist"

[usonian]

35. When Donald is long gone, buried beneath the 18th hole somewhere, the Stooges will claim the spoils as rulers.

And do a better job!

[Prairie Gates]

7. You would need a 250,000 troop invasion of the Iranian side of the Strait

And you'd need to occupy pretty much all of Hormozgan and probably Bushehr provinces with a foothold 20 miles from the shore, minimum. So basically 10s of thousands of square miles and about 3.5 million Iranians.

Good luck.

[Strelnikov_]

8. This is why the W admin dropped any talk of taking on Iran

After their ‘big win’ in 03.

DoD did a war game, same conclusion every time, no way to reopen Hormuz with sea/air power alone, many ships lost. Anti ASM defences need distance, something not there in Hormuz.

And this was before modern drones.

Like the Koksun guns of North Korea for wiping out Seoul, tucked away in caves, Iranians have been hardening the coast along Hormuz for decades.

[EarthFirst]

11. It's not that they're busy as much as they haven't quite figured out how much to charge per transit...

Still debating on the fees and whether it’s one-way or round trip…

A punch card program as well: ‘Buy 5 and get the 6th transit on ME!”

[AverageOldGuy]

15. Naval escorts are not the issue

The problem is MARITIME INSURANCE.

The insurance companies are much smarter than Trump and his clowns. They understand that a naval escort really can't do much of anything about mines or drones.

Right now, the maritime insurance companies have pulled insurance coverage from commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz and neighboring waters.

[Bluetus]

36. Exactly. And Trump is saying taxpayers will provide reinsurance to

the likes of Lloyds of London. Remind me, when did Congress appropriate money for us to be an insurance company.

As you imply, nobody is taking a tanker through the Strait without insurance. Having a Hegseth escort is not the same thing as insurance.

And any shipping companies should keep in mind, Trump never pays his bills. Never has. If your tanker gets hit, you are on your own.

[bromeando]

16. Tankers

It would have been nice to figure this out beforehand.

[Martin68]

18. A public announcement that Trump lied. Again.

[Martin68]

19. I suspect our Navy vessels woulld be sitting ducks in the Strait.

[bucolic_frolic]

30. Iran is a much larger country with more drones than Ukraine

and Ukraine has stalled Russia for 4 years

[Red Mountain]

39. Not exactly sitting ducks

but look at how much chaos the Houthis managed to cause in the Red Sea with very limited resources.

I expect the Iranians have a bit more to work with and a much smaller target area.

I wouldn't want a ship I owned to try it.......not until oil is worth a lot more.

So......maybe in a couple of months if the Iranians can keep up the blockade.

[Martin68]

44. I call them sitting ducks because the is very little room for mobility and they are close to land on both sides.

There are numerous weapons that could be used to attack them at relatively close range. They are like goldfish in a barrel.that's why they are hesitating to send resources to protect tankers. Can you suggest another reason?

[bucolic_frolic]

29. If you destroy "the manufacturing industry that supplies their offensive capabilities"

doesn't that include their oil infrastructure? And why would they supply their enemy with oil?

[Grins]

41. But Bessent said it is!!!!!

He’s the Energy Secretary! He knows squat about protecting ships!

Who asks stupid questions to idiots like theses two?

[Evolve Dammit]

42. Encouraging vessels to just go for it is insane. But that's where we are under Orange Julius. n/t

[BWdem4life]

47. Probably in two weeks.