The biggest naval convoy operation since the 1980s just started
The United States launched Operation Project Freedom on Monday, sending guided-missile destroyers alongside stranded commercial tankers through the Strait of Hormuz for the first time since Iran effectively shut the waterway in late February. The Pentagon framed it as humanitarian. Iran called it a ceasefire violation and threatened to open fire.
President Trump announced the operation on Saturday, saying the Navy would begin "guiding" neutral-flagged ships to safety starting Monday morning. He described the roughly 800 commercial vessels trapped in the Persian Gulf as "innocent bystanders" running low on food, drinking water, and fuel. An estimated 20,000 seafarers remain stranded aboard those ships, some for over two months.
U.S. Central Command said support for the operation includes guided-missile destroyers from the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members.
First convoy hugs the Omani coast
The Joint Maritime Information Center established an "enhanced security area" south of standard shipping lanes and told mariners to coordinate with Omani authorities due to anticipated heavy traffic. The routing keeps vessels as far from Iranian waters as the narrow strait allows.
A first group of five supertankers reportedly completed the passage overnight without incident, sticking to the Omani side of the channel under the protective screen of Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. Initial convoys are carrying crude loaded in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Kuwait.
The Pentagon was careful with its language. Officials said warships would be "in the vicinity" of merchant vessels rather than formally escorting them, a distinction that matters under international maritime law but may matter less to the IRGC Navy watching from the opposite shore.
Iran says it will attack
Tehran's response was immediate and unambiguous. Major General Ali Abdollahi of Iran's armed forces central command warned that "any foreign armed force, especially the aggressive U.S. military, if they intend to approach or enter the Strait of Hormuz, will be targeted and attacked."
Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament's National Security Commission, called any American interference in the strait a violation of the April 8 ceasefire. "The Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf would not be managed by Trump's delusional posts," Azizi wrote on social media.
The rival announcements raised the immediate prospect of a direct confrontation between Iranian and American naval forces — the scenario both sides had managed to avoid since the ceasefire took hold four weeks ago.
Mines make the strait a gauntlet
Even without a deliberate Iranian attack, the passage remains extremely dangerous. The maritime center warned that traditional shipping routes carry "extreme danger" from naval mines that have not been cleared.
Iran planted mines across the strait in March and, according to U.S. military sources, subsequently lost track of some of them. The Pentagon says it has destroyed 16 Iranian minelayers, but CENTCOM currently has only one littoral combat ship with a mine countermeasures mission package in the region. Clearing the strait fully could take six months or more.
Iran's mine stockpile is roughly ten times larger than what it possessed during the 1980s Tanker War. Combined with advanced anti-ship cruise and ballistic missiles, coastal artillery, and fleets of explosive-laden drone boats capable of exceeding 40 knots, the threat environment dwarfs anything the U.S. Navy faced in prior Gulf operations.
The insurance wall
Getting warships into the strait solves one problem. Getting insurers back into the market solves a different one — and the Navy cannot do that with destroyers.
War-risk insurance premiums for Hormuz transits surged from 0.125% to between 0.2% and 0.4% of hull value during the crisis. For a very large crude carrier, that translates to a quarter of a million dollars or more per single passage. Many underwriters stopped writing Hormuz policies altogether.
The Trump administration responded by directing the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation to partner with private insurers on a reinsurance facility offering up to $40 billion in coverage. But commercial shipping companies need more than a government backstop — they need confidence that the route will stay open, and Monday's Iranian threats did not provide that.
Echoes of 1987 — but harder
The last time the U.S. Navy ran convoys through the Gulf was Operation Earnest Will in 1987–88, protecting reflagged Kuwaiti tankers during the Iran-Iraq War. That first convoy on July 22, 1987, consisted of just two commercial ships escorted by five Navy vessels. An oil tanker struck a mine on that very first run.
Project Freedom is operating at a far larger scale against far greater threats. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy assessed that convoy operations "could come at a significant cost and take significant time, and they are not guaranteed to safeguard navigation." Residual Iranian attack capability — even after the destruction of over 130 Iranian naval vessels — may be enough to deter shipowners, traders, and insurers from using the strait regardless of how many destroyers are present.
Oil dipped, then recovered
Crude prices initially fell after Trump's Saturday announcement, with traders reading the operation as a step toward restoring supply flows. Brent dropped 64 cents to $107.53 and WTI shed 84 cents to $101.10 on the news.
But the gains were short-lived. By Monday, Brent had climbed back to $109.39, up 1.22%, and WTI sat at $102.90, up nearly 1%. Iran's threats appear to have reminded the market that guiding ships past a hostile shore lined with missiles and uncharted mines is not the same as reopening a trade route.
Before Project Freedom, only 12 vessel crossings were recorded through the strait on May 2. Whether that number rises meaningfully this week will depend on something the Pentagon cannot control: whether shipowners and their insurers believe the passage is safe enough to risk a billion-dollar cargo.