Trump Announces Plan to "Guide" Ships Out of Strait of Hormuz
On Sunday, President Donald Trump announced a new effort to help guide foreign-flag ships out of the Arabian Gulf, where hundreds of vessels are trapped by the ongoing Iranian blockade. The new American effort, "Project Freedom," will provide a degree of assistance to other nations' merchant ships; it does not reportedly include convoy escorts, but it will provide masters with information on safe routes and the locations of naval mines.
"We have told these countries that we will guide their ships safely out of these restricted waterways," Trump wrote in a statement. "We will use best efforts to get their ships and crews safely out of the strait. . . . If, in any way, this humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully."
The operation is set to begin Monday morning. In an update to shipping, Central Command's Joint Maritime Information Center said that the U.S. has set up an "enhanced security area" for vessel transits to the south of the Traffic Separation Scheme, within the Omani sector of the strait.
Iran swiftly rejected the plan. In a statement, Ebrahim Azizi, head of Iran’s parliament national security committee, confirmed that the strait remains closed. "Any American interference in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the ceasefire," said Azizi. "The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts!"
The Wall Street Journal reports that the newly-announced "Project Freedom" will not send U.S. Navy sailors into harm's way: It is an operational framework for guiding and insuring shipping, without (as of yet) any plans to provide warship escorts in the near term.
Control of the Strait of Hormuz is the biggest leverage that Tehran has over the U.S. in ongoing negotiations, and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claims to be getting revenue from a newly-created "tollbooth" permission system for safe passage. If successful, and if continued at scale, a tolling system would provide Iran with a much-needed new source of income - one it has emphasized that it is keen to keep. Iran is not expected to cede control of the waterway without significant incentives, either in the form of a negotiated agreement or an expanded military operation.
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For shipowners, it is not clear what immediate protection might be available under "Project Freedom." While the U.S. Air Force and Army could provide close air support for shipping in the strait, the U.S. Navy's assets are all outside of the Gulf, far from the narrow, twisty waterway.
Iranian opposition may already be taking shape in the form of renewed attacks. At about 1940 hours UTC, after the announcement of Project Freedom, a tanker reported that it had been hit by unknown projectiles at a position on the south side of the waterway - the general area of the declared security zone.
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