Vance: petrol prices would be 'three times as high' without US Navy in Strait of Hormuz

US Vice President JD Vance has acknowledged that “gas prices are too high right now” but said they would fall once the US-Israel war on Iran “is over”, telling a CBS News town hall that Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz and its attacks on tankers were driving up fuel costs.

“We’ve never had a situation like this” with one country “trying to completely choke off world energy supply”, Vance said, according to Al Jazeera.

He claimed petrol prices would be “three times as high if it weren’t for the US Navy keeping oil and gas moving out of the Strait of Hormuz”. “If we just … left and we let the Iranians control shipping out of the Strait of Hormuz, what that would mean is you would pay a lot more for gasoline,” he added.

Vance also said the US had “in some ways decisively won” the war on Iran and destroyed the country’s nuclear programme, and that Washington now wanted a “long-term” and “verifiable commitment” from Tehran not to rebuild enrichment.

“Not over the administration of Donald Trump … but five years from now, could the Iranians rebuild that nuclear arsenal? Could they try to rebuild that enrichment capacity?” he asked.

Iran has long denied seeking nuclear weapons and insists on its right to a civilian nuclear programme, including for power generation and medical research.

Sources: Dawn (2026-10-18), The Express Tribune (2026-10-18), Al Jazeera liveblog (2026-10-18), Wionews live blog (2026-10-18)