The lines seem endless.
Like giant ants, oil-hauling trucks with Iraqi license plates and white, cylindrical fuel tanks bearing a red stripe down the middle rumble along in single file, one after the other.
With the U.S.-Iran war having severely restricted shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, nearly 900 miles away, this four-lane road winding by olive groves and apple orchards in Syria’s western countryside has been Iraq’s only route to export oil to the world.
Why We Wrote This
During the Iran war, Tehran's most potent leverage vis-à-vis the U.S. and global economies proved to be its ability to clamp down on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. The search for overland routes for oil and other goods has led directly to Syria, an old crossroads revived.
Some 1,400 such trucks have entered the country from Iraq each day, forming convoys that cross the desert westward to unload fuel on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.
Their destination is Baniyas, a small, shallow, 4-meter-deep port with a handful of cargo vessels and dozens of aging, chipped-paint wooden fishing boats flying Syria’s new flag docked at its quay.
On a recent Thursday morning, one nautical mile offshore, a half-dozen tankers from across the world are anchored, waiting for the Iraqi oil.
Crews are busy at the port; cranes are dredging the harbor so Baniyas can accept larger vessels.
Largely inactive for more than a decade and last repaired in 2006, this Syrian port is now handling 90,000 barrels of Iraqi oil per day.
“Syria is starting to take advantage of its geographic position due to the war and becoming an important trading center in the world,” says Ali Adra, director of public relations for Syria’s port authorities. “Our ports are seeing demand growing by the day from the Gulf and across the world for containers, bulk goods, energy.”
Ghaith Alsayed/AP
Iraqi trucks loaded with oil wait in a long line to drive toward the Baniyas refinery and port in western Syria, May 1, 2026.
Despite the finalization of a ceasefire agreement early Monday between the United States and Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Iran continues to claim it will impose tolls on the shared waterway, and Gulf states are doubling down on alternatives.
With its rail, roads, ports, and land link between continents, Syria is at the center of new trade and energy corridors being developed by Gulf Arab states, Jordan, and Turkey to circumvent the Persian Gulf.
These long-unused Syrian transit corridors cannot entirely replace the Strait of Hormuz, experts and officials say, but they can dramatically reduce the world’s reliance on the hotly contested shipping lane.
They are already reshaping regional trade and cementing new Mideast alliances.
With a slew of recently announced rail projects , Europe and the local powers are working to reduce how long Iran has leverage in the Strait of Hormuz. Ironically, Tehran’s closure of the waterway has thrown an economic lifeline and strategic advantage to an enemy, interim Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, who ousted the Iran-allied Assad regime in December 2024.
This is why Syria will be selling itself this week at the Group of Seven meeting in Evian, France, as a safe Hormuz alternative through which Europe and the Gulf can trade and lay fiber optic cables beyond the reach of Iran or its proxies.
Even with logistical challenges and a high price tag, regional states and economists agree that a post-Hormuz future runs through Syria.
Historical bridge reawakened
Syria’s strategic geographic position connecting continents, including nearly 130 miles of Mediterranean coastline, was never fully utilized during five decades of dictatorship and war.
Taylor Luck
Chinese sailors aboard a docked Chinese vessel carrying heavy industrial equipment and steel look out across the port in Tartus, Syria, June 4, 2026. The Mediterranean port has become part of a key export and import route for a Middle East racing to find alternative trading corridors to the Strait of Hormuz.
Before the 2011 uprising and civil war, 114,000 trucks crossed Syria each year between Europe and the Gulf, while a regular maritime route between Tartus and Venice, Italy, brought fresh Syrian produce to Europe.
“Syria’s geographic position as a land bridge that connects Europe and the Arab Gulf through roads and rail predates the Hormuz crisis,” Syrian Transport Minister Yarub Badr says in his Damascus office, noting that the crisis has dramatically enhanced its importance.
“This land transport hub cannot be a complete replacement for maritime shipping between Europe and the Arab Gulf,” he says. “But in challenging times, it represents an alternative corridor.”
Even with much of Syria’s road and rail infrastructure still damaged by war and needing renovation, the Gulf states, Turkey, and Iraq are now diverting much of their trade through the country.
Since the Strait of Hormuz closure in March, Gulf states have been importing thousands of tons of timber, cement, soy, corn,…
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