US President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Syria is promoting itself as an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, describing this trend as “wonderful.”
In a post on his “Truth Social” platform, Trump shared a Washington Post investigation that dealt with Damascus’s efforts to take advantage of the Strait of Hormuz crisis and turn it into an economic opportunity, and commented on it by saying: “This is wonderful.”
According to the report, the disruption of shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz may constitute an opportunity for Syria to benefit from the growing demand for alternative methods of transporting oil, taking advantage of the location of the port of Baniyas on the Mediterranean Sea.
The report indicated that Syria, under the leadership of President Ahmed al-Sharaa, seeks to present itself as a land corridor for energy and goods and an alternative to the Strait of Hormuz, in conjunction with the lifting of international sanctions and the continuation of the war in the vicinity of the vital sea corridor.
The Washington Post noted that trucks have already begun transporting oil between refineries in southern Iraq and the port of Baniyas, in an experiment launched by Iraqi exporters to circumvent the Strait of Hormuz after shipping traffic in it stopped.
The report also indicated that the Trump administration announced last July its support for a pipeline project led by Chevron, to transport about two million barrels of crude oil per day from Basra in southern Iraq to Baniyas, via a route similar to the route that trucks currently take.
Trump’s special envoy, Tom Brake, said when announcing the project that the pipeline would help make the Strait of Hormuz “secondary.”
