US President Donald Trump announced a new initiative, "Project Freedom," which he said was intended to "guide" ships trapped in the Persian Gulf out of the area safely, because of the condition of crews aboard vessels that have been unable to leave the region for more than two months.
However, according to The Wall Street Journal, the plan does not involve US Navy military escorts for merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz, a move that could expose them to the threat of Iranian missiles, drones and mines.
"Many of these Ships are running low on food, and everything else necessary for largescale crews to stay on board in a healthy and sanitary manner," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Trump described the stranded seafarers as "victims of circumstances," writing that "the Ship movement is merely meant to free up people, companies, and Countries that have done absolutely nothing wrong." He said the move came after appeals from "countries from all over the World, almost all of which are not involved in the Middle Eastern dispute going on so visibly, and violently, for all to see, have asked the United States if we could help free up their Ships, which are locked up in the Strait of Hormuz."
The president added that "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." He described the announcement as a US "humanitarian gesture."
At the same time as Trump's announcement, US Central Command issued an official statement saying that "CENTCOM forces will begin supporting Project Freedom starting May 4, in order to restore freedom of navigation for commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz." It said "the mission, as directed by the president, will support commercial vessels seeking to transit freely through that essential international trade corridor."
CENTCOM Commander Adm. Brad Cooper added, "Our support for this defensive mission is essential to regional security and the global economy as we also maintain the naval blockade." According to the statement, "Project Freedom" will involve destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, unmanned systems and 15,000 troops. It was previously reported in Israel Hayom that Cooper had presented Trump with the option of such an operation, while CENTCOM was also preparing a plan to open the Strait of Hormuz to non-Iranian ships and tankers.
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) May 3, 2026
The Pentagon and the State Department also said last week that they had launched a joint initiative called the Maritime Freedom Construct, aimed at combining diplomatic action with military coordination with international partners to maintain maritime security in the strait.
However, according to a senior US official who spoke with The Wall Street Journal, the move Trump announced, which the official described as a "process," is a coordination mechanism among countries, insurance companies and shipping organizations. At this stage, US Navy vessels are not expected to physically escort ships through the strait. The official said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had recently deployed additional naval mines in the strait, endangering commercial traffic there.
If that is indeed the case, the move does not appear to be an operation on the scale of Operation Earnest Will in 1987, during which the US reflagged 11 Kuwaiti oil tankers under the American flag and tasked the US Navy with escorting them through the Strait of Hormuz. The operation, which lasted 14 months, led to direct military confrontation with Iran: A US frigate was badly damaged after striking a mine, an Iranian passenger plane was mistakenly shot down, and Iranian naval assets were destroyed. It ended only with the cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq War in August 1988.
Still, it is unclear whether the move was coordinated with Tehran. In his post, Trump warned that " if, in any way, this Humanitarian process is interfered with, that interference will, unfortunately, have to be dealt with forcefully." In an initial response from Iran, Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote on X that "any American intervention in the new maritime regime of the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a violation of the cease-fire." Azizi added that "the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf will not be managed by Trump's delusional posts."
According to figures from the International Maritime Organization, about 20,000 seafarers are affected by the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, many of them stranded aboard roughly 2,000 vessels unable to cross the strait, a route that in normal times carried about one-fifth of the world's oil and liquefied natural gas supply. Iran has allowed a negligible number of ships, relative to the strait's normal traffic, to leave, mostly from countries friendly to it, via a route near Larak Island in its territorial waters.
