President Trump said Sunday that the U.S. would start guiding commercial ships out of the Strait of Hormuz where they have been trapped by the war between the U.S. and Iran, in an arm’s-length effort to unblock the vital supply route.
“Countries from all over the World…have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. “For the good of Iran, the Middle East, and the United States, we have told these Countries that we will guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways, so that they can freely and ably get on with their business.”
The new mechanism, which Trump dubbed “Project Freedom,” is effectively a coordination cell to move traffic through the Strait, involving countries, insurance companies and shipping organizations, according to two senior U.S. officials. It doesn’t currently involve U.S. Navy warships escorting vessels through the strait, the official s said.
But European diplomats and shipowners recalled previous failed attempts by the president to get shipping moving, including his call for NATO allies to send warships, a request that went unheeded. Without warship escorts, a coordination cell is unlikely to markedly change the situation in the strait, they said.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps recently deployed naval mines in the strait, posing new dangers for commercial shipping traffic through the waterway, according to an official. Before the conflict, some 20% of the world’s oil supply passed through the strait.
The latest Trump proposal will involve locating the mines and passing along that information to ships transiting the waterway so they can avoid danger, according to senior U.S. officials, as well as identifying generally the safest routes to navigate.
The U.S. is seeking the support of other nations to provide information that would help identify those navigable routes, officials said.
If there is interference with the process, that “will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully,” Trump said in his social-media post.
The initiative will begin Monday morning, Middle East time, Trump wrote.
He described the move as a “humanitarian gesture” on behalf of the U.S., Middle Eastern countries and, in particular, Iran, without elaborating on what role the Islamic Republic would play.
A spokesman for the Iranian mission to the United Nations didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. military support for the effort will include 15,000 servicemembers, as well as guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, and unmanned platforms, according to a statement by U.S. Central Command.
In response to the U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran that began on Feb. 28, Tehran effectively closed the strait, a strategic waterway for global oil and gas trade, roiling global energy markets. The Trump administration responded by imposing a naval blockade on Iranian ports in a bid to ramp up economic pressure on the country to meet U.S. negotiating terms.
The Iranian attacks and the U.S. blockade have reduced ship traffic through the strait to its lowest point since the start of the war, according to data from Lloyd’s List, a shipping publication.
As well as transiting a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas supplies, the strait is a critical artery for transporting fertilizer, aluminum and helium gas, which are needed for the artificial-intelligence industry.
Iran has targeted some 25 commercial vessels in and around the strait since the start of the conflict. On Sunday, a bulk carrier reported being attacked by multiple small vessels in the waterway, according to the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations, which is affiliated with the Royal Navy.
Iran’s so-called Mosquito fleet of small attack craft resumed attacks on ships in the strait after Trump said his blockade of Iranian ports would continue despite a temporary cease-fire. Iran has seized two commercial ships in recent weeks using small, gun-mounted boats.
“The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf won’t be managed through Trump’s delusional posts,” the head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee wrote on X on Sunday after the president’s announcement.
“Any US interference in the new maritime arrangement for the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the cease-fire,” Ebrahim Azizi said in his post, which he prefaced with the word, “WARNING.”
Traders quickly expressed skepticism that the new U.S. effort would solve the problem posed by Iran’s closure of the strait. A European shipowner with four vessels stranded in the Persian Gulf said there would have to be a “definitive cease-fire” before his ships start moving out. Brokers, owners and ship trackers say there are about 1,600 vessels trapped on both sides of the strait.
“The proposal is vague to say the least. If you are guided out by a western warship you can become an even more attractive target for the IRGC,” said Kostas Karathanos, chief operating officer of Athens-based GasLog, which has one gas carrier stuck in the Gulf of Oman trying to get to Asia since the start of the war. Shipping companies are afraid of being hit as they could become potential targets.
The Trump administration last month began asking other countries to join a “Maritime Freedom Construct,” which it hopes to build into a new international coalition that will enable ships to navigate the waterway, The Wall Street Journal reported. The effort was spelled out in an internal State Department cable sent to U.S. embassies in April that called on U.S. diplomats to press foreign governments into signing up. So far, none have done so, according to one of the senior officials.
The U.S.-led coalition would share information, coordinate diplomatically and enforce sanctions, according to the cable.
Trump’s announcement comes as he said he would likely reject an Iranian proposal to end the war, in the latest sign the U.S. and Iran have hit an impasse on cease-fire talks.
Iran in recent days submitted a 14-point plan to fully end war with the U.S. after both sides declared a temporary truce on April 7 to pave the way for negotiations. Key points of the Iranian plan were nonstarters for the U.S. side, including a payment of war reparations to Tehran and releasing of Iranian frozen assets.
So far, the 15 ships that have crossed the strait over the last five weeks have gone through Larak Island, a corridor in the north of the strait, which is fully controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, which is charging tolls of around $2 million a ship. Those that have crossed are mostly Greek, Chinese and Indian- owned vessels, according to brokers and ship trackers. The ships were carrying crude oil, butane gas and consumer products.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that Iran must reopen the strait and fully abandon its nuclear program as part of any final deal to end the war. U.S. allies in Europe have been sending this message to Iran in their own efforts to advance peace talks.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Sunday said Iran was beginning to feel pressure from the blockade and may have to start shutting down its own oil wells soon as storage facilities fill up amid the U.S. blockade. “They are rapidly filling up, filling up storage. And as that happens, they’re going to have to start shutting in wells, which we think could be in the next week,” he told Fox News.
While the U.S. blockade has ratcheted up pressure on Tehran, economic pressure alone may not be enough to convince the Iranian government to abandon its longstanding strategic goal of maintaining a nuclear weapons program and funding proxy terrorist groups across the region, officials and analysts have said.
U.S. forces have redirected 49 vessels as part of the blockade, U.S. Central Command, which is enforcing the blockade of Iranian ports, announced on Sunday.
Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com , Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com
