Comment by roenxi

But it does imply at some level attempting to achieve them. At every stage of the war the US has taken (and continues to take) action that is more likely to close the strait than open it. To the point where people were pointing it out how this would game out years before the war actually happened.

It is possible that the US military is so incompetent that they can't plan or that Trump has lost touch with reality. But then their goals would just be incoherent and incomprehensible. Assuming they have coherent goals and some capacity to work towards them it is clear that an open strait is at best a very low priority one.