The USS New Orleans transits the Arabian Sea on April 28, 2026. Questions remain over a new U.S. effort to protect maritime commerce in the Strait of Hormuz as the American blockade of Iranian ports continues. (U.S. Central Command)
U.S. forces are prepared to help stranded ships make it out of the Strait of Hormuz as part of a new mission in the stalemated Iran conflict, but information on how the effort will take shape is scant so far.
President Donald Trump and Defense Department officials said late Sunday that the U.S. will help guide ships from “neutral and innocent” countries out of the waterway, which has been virtually blocked for more than two months amid hostilities.
Dubbed “Project Freedom,” the effort will include guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft and 15,000 service members, according to U.S. Central Command. But it appears to stop short of a full naval escort through the crucial maritime corridor.
The purpose is to enhance coordination and information sharing among international partners, U.S. Central Command said. But news of the project was met with confusion and doubt from industry experts and officials Monday.
“I suspect much more detail will be needed as to how this proposal will work in practice and if it can be proven to enhance the safety of shipping,” said Marcus Baker, the global head of marine, cargo and logistics for Marsh Risk, a U.K.-based insurance provider and risk adviser.
CENTCOM declined to provide additional details on Project Freedom, including whether it would involve escorting ships.
As of Monday, the U.S. had established an enhanced security area to support the Strait of Hormuz transits, according to the Joint Maritime Information Center, which provides maritime updates to commercial shipping companies.
Shipping companies and their insurers have been wary of transiting the waterway since the war started on Feb. 28. In an advisory Monday, the Joint Maritime Information Center advised vessels to consider crossing the waterway near Oman.
As part of Project Freedom, the U.S. will share information about the location of Iranian mines, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The new effort suggests that the Navy has verified a path through the strait that is clear of mines and that U.S. ships have made several passages along the transit lanes without being attacked by Iran, said Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
The information-sharing from the Navy is not necessarily new, Clark added, noting that the U.S. leads the Combined Maritime Forces, a 47-nation coalition based out of Bahrain.
However, the U.S. may want to test Tehran’s willingness to follow through on its threats, Clark said.
“If (Iran) doesn’t attack shipping, then the strait is provisionally open and shipping could resume, albeit at some risk,” he said. “But the U.S. does not want to commit to escorting ships because it doesn’t want to be tied up in the mission indefinitely and doesn’t want to take the reputational risk of failing in its ship escorting efforts.”
Even with intelligence on mines, though, Iran can still attack vessels in other ways. A U.K.-based maritime security monitor reported assaults on two ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday that featured projectiles and small attack boats.
Trump’s announcement left industry partners scrambling to get more details on Monday, according to Lloyd’s List, an international maritime intelligence service.
Iran on Monday warned that any American interference in the Strait of Hormuz would be considered a violation of a ceasefire negotiated last month.
The waterway will not “be managed by Trump’s delusional posts,” the head of the national security commission of Iran’s parliament said in an X post.
That resistance indicates that any passage through the strait is still a high-risk operation, Jakob Larsen, BIMCO chief safety and security officer, said in remarks to Lloyd’s List.
“It is unclear the extent to which ‘Project Freedom’ will change much in terms of re-establishing freedom of navigation,” Larsen said. “It seems likely that we will see a resumption of hostilities, and the question is whether further combat operations can degrade the Iranian threat to a level where more shipowners find the risk level acceptable to attempt a transit.”
