Trump said that the US wants to keep the Strait of Hormuz open at all costs: the administration is set to, through a government agency, offer insurance guarantees for tankers and at the same time prepare the option that the U.S. Navy will escort ships through the strait.

This is seen as an attempt to quickly 'knock down' the risk premium on oil and calm the markets, because once traffic in Hormuz is disrupted, it immediately spills over into energy prices, inflation, and thus interest-rate expectations. The market reacted to the news only partially—the oil price did give back some of its gains, but the skeptics are right about one thing: insurance and escorts are only a technical solution, whereas the problem is political and security-related, and that doesn't get 'rewritten' overnight by a single announcement.

For an investor, this is practically a game of three scenarios. In the best case, escorts and insurance actually restore smooth operations and oil takes back part of the risk premium—this would ease the market and consumption, but at the same time it would take the wind out of the sails of energy stocks that are currently benefiting from the tension. In the middle scenario, shipping would continue but more slowly and at higher cost (insurance, logistics, longer routes, fear of incidents)—oil could then stay higher for longer, which is unpleasant for industry, transport, and the 'consumer' segment of the market. And in the worst case, one larger incident is enough and the market will return to 'first panic, then questions' mode, because the strait is too important to be replaced.