Vance says Hormuz oil flow near pre-war levels, China willing to help isolate Iran

US Vice President JD Vance said on Thursday that oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz were nearly back to levels seen before the war with Iran, as he argued that Tehran had effectively lost control over the strategic waterway.

“If you go back three months ago, how much oil and gas was coming out of the strait under Iranian threats? It was virtually nothing. Now, it’s almost back to where it was before the conflict even started,” Vance said during a White House briefing.

Vance said Iran’s control over the Strait of Hormuz was “effectively gone” and that the United States would not hold talks with Tehran unless it stopped “shooting at ships.”

The vice president also said China was willing to cooperate with efforts to economically isolate Iran. China is the world’s largest importer of crude oil and has historically been a major buyer of Iranian oil, making Beijing a key player in Washington’s efforts to exert economic pressure on Tehran.

Vance separately said the United States was investigating an alleged strike on a wedding in southern Iran that Iranian authorities said killed four people, including a child, and wounded 68 others.

The strike reportedly hit a wedding ceremony on Tuesday night in the coastal town of Kuhestak, along the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian authorities blamed the United States and described the attack as a “war crime.”

“I know that we’re investigating,” Vance said, while expressing skepticism about Tehran’s account of the incident.

“I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far. So I’m extremely skeptical of this.”

US Central Command has not directly addressed the alleged strike but said that “the US military never targets civilians.”

The latest developments come amid continuing tensions between Washington and Tehran following the US-Israeli bombing campaign against Iran that began on February 28. An April ceasefire ended the initial phase of intense fighting, but sporadic exchanges have continued, particularly in and around the Strait of Hormuz.