CNN star Erin Burnett offered some irrefutable evidence that despite President Donald Trump’s claims, his administration does not have “total control” of the Strait of Hormuz.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attacked a cargo ship navigating the strait on Thursday for the first time since the U.S. and Tehran agreed last week to work toward a peace deal, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The vessel was hit by a drone hours after Iran’s paramilitary navy warned ships to only follow routes the regime had sanctioned, undermining Trump’s claims that the strait was fully open in accordance with his memorandum of understanding signed earlier this month.
Before the attack, Trump had insisted to reporters in the Oval Office, “We have total control of the strait.”
But Tehran’s strike spoke “louder than any words,” Burnett said.
“Now, obviously, if you have total control of the strait, other countries aren’t bombing ships in the strait,” Burnett said. “That’s just to state the obvious.”
The 60-day deal to reopen the strait required Iran to make its best efforts to ensure the safe passage of commercial vessels in exchange for the U.S. lifting a blockade of its port.
The president was desperate to reopen the strait after his war with Iran brought shipping to a near standstill, creating a bottleneck for global oil supplies from the Gulf that sent prices soaring.
As part of the agreement, the U.S. also waived sanctions on Iranian oil sales this week and allowed Tehran to sell its crude in dollars for the first time in decades.
The deal has been widely criticized for providing concrete benefits to Iran in exchange for vague promises, with even the president’s allies conceding the agreement was weaker than the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action that Trump ripped up in his first term.
After Thursday’s strike, the status of Trump’s MOU was even more shaky and undefined, Burnett said.
“They are still in control of the Strait of Hormuz. They can shut it down whenever they want, despite what Trump just claimed,” Burnett said.
She also pointed out the strait was just one area where Washington and Tehran can’t seem to agree on what’s in the MOU.
Trump insists that nuclear inspectors will be allowed inside Iran, while the regime is adamant they won’t be.
Iran’s president also said its missile program wasn’t part of the agreement, whereas Trump has said Tehran’s missiles were one of the reasons the U.S. went to war in the first place.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
