ON SEPTEMBER 26TH Donald Trump rejected an Iranian ceasefire proposal that would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz for seven days. Iran wants a deal because it is “losing so badly,” said the president. Mr Trump and many of his advisers reckon America has more to gain by waiting.
The volume of oil coming out of the Gulf would seem to prove him right. Kpler, a shiptracker, estimates that the region’s Arab states have shipped, on average, 17m barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and refined products so far in September, if flows through Hormuz and those bypassing it via pipelines are included. That is the most since February and close to the pre-war total of 21m (see chart 1). Iran, by contrast, is exporting just 200,000 bpd, less than a tenth of what it shipped before the conflict began. From Washington, 7,000 miles away, Iran’s chokehold on Gulf oil looks like it is loosening.