Iran was the main topic of discussion at the leaders\u2019 opening dinner on Monday night when Trump gave his counterparts an extensive rundown on the benefits of the deal, one official said, insisting there will be no fee on the strait.<\/p>\n
The atmosphere at the dinner was described by the official as leaders talking frankly and freely about Iran without reading notes. For their part, the French are in touch with Iranians at the ministerial level to discuss details but haven\u2019t had a clear response from them either, the official said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
One senior US official said traffic in the waterway would ramp up over time, and it could take as many as two weeks for shipping to significantly increase \u2014 and even longer for it to return to the levels seen before the US and Israel attacked Iran in February.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That was an important counterweight to Trump\u2019s optimism about the ease with which traffic could resume as normal.<\/p>\n
\u201cShips are starting to go out now, on Friday it\u2019ll be completely opened,\u201d Trump said Monday at the leaders summit in Evian. \u201cThey\u2019re doing a little hunting for a couple of mines that they\u2019ve already found, but it\u2019s \u2014 essentially ships are starting to go out now.\u201d<\/p>\n
But there are mines in the strait that still need to be cleared and shippers have different risk tolerances about navigating Hormuz, one official said.<\/p>\n
Iran would most likely have deployed a mix of mines: some that sit on the bottom, some that are moored to the bottom but float beneath the surface, and those that float on the surface.<\/p>\n
Finding and eliminating them all is a labor-intensive process of proving a negative, said Ben Cipperley, a retired US Navy officer who worked in mine warfare and is now an executive at Havoc AI, a startup focused on networking autonomous systems.<\/p>\n
The waterway will be divided into sections and explored with uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs) carrying sensors. Their data will determine what objects are mines that need to be disarmed or destroyed.<\/p>\n
Unlike European navies, the US no longer has dedicated minesweeping ships, with its Avenger-class vessels set for retirement. Instead, Littoral Combat Ships can be fitted with a mine clearance equipment package, including UUVs.<\/p>\n
Tools such as influence systems\u2014which trigger mines\u2019 magnetic detonators\u2014can be used to destroy the weapons at a distance, Cipperley said. But others would need to be destroyed with explosive charges, either remotely or with divers.<\/p>\n
\u201cMinesweeping and mine hunting are very slow, meticulous operations,\u201d he said. \u201cConfidence that you have found and cleared mines in a given area is the top priority over speed of operations.\u201d<\/p>\n
How long the mission would take depends on how many mines there are, among other factors. If Iran provides information on where the weapons have been placed, it could go faster.<\/p>\n
Both crewed ships and sea drones would move at speeds of just 3-5 knots (3.5-6 mph) during mine clearance, Cipperley said. Given the size of the strait, it could take 30 days or more to confidently declare the waterway mine-free \u2014 a timeline that would stretch with any setbacks.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou always need to assume an unplanned detonation could occur,\u201d he said. \u201cEven if operations are planned and executed to perfection, there is a non-zero probability that a mine was missed or buried, or a floating mine shifted in location between passes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9\u00a02026\u00a0Bloomberg L.P.<\/p>\n
Editorial Standards<\/a> \u00b7 Corrections<\/a> \u00b7 About gCaptain<\/a><\/p>\n This article contains reporting from Bloomberg, published under license.<\/p>\n \t\t Sign up for gCaptain\u2019s newsletter and never miss an update<\/p>\n \u2014 trusted by our 105,075 members<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By\u00a0Andrea Palasciano, Samy Adghirni, Ania Nussbaum and Gerry Doyle Jun 16, 2026 (Bloomberg) \u2013European officials are wary of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[1693,102,34,7174,39,101],"class_list":["post-163519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-eu","tag-hormuz","tag-iran","tag-mines","tag-persian-gulf","tag-strait-of-hormuz"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116761732437609301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"logo\"\/](\"https:\/\/gcaptain.com\/wp-content\/themes\/gCaptain-Theme\/assets\/images\/gcaptain-new-gray-logo.svg\"){kind=logo}
\n\t\tSubscribe for Daily Maritime Insights<\/p>\n