Trump\u2019s announcement was vague on what the effort would look like in practice. CENTCOM\u2019s statement did not specify what specific actions U.S. forces would take, instead saying that the \u201cdefensive mission\u201d would involve coordinating the transit of the merchant vessels through the strait \u201cto restore freedom of navigation for commercial shipping.\u201d CENTCOM chief Adm. Brad Cooper said in the release that the U.S. will still \u201cmaintain the naval blockade.\u201d<\/p>\n
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The effort marks a major shift in the actions around the important waterway \u2014 a major point of transit for oil and important chemicals \u2014 after both Iran and the United States enacted blockades around the strait in the wake of the U.S. and Israeli war with Iran that started on Feb. 28. A temporary ceasefire has been in effect since April 7. Diplomatic efforts to end the war have been ongoing over the weekend, with the two countries discussing an Iranian peace proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Trump\u2019s announcement, Ebrahim Azizi, the head of the Iranian Parliament\u2019s National Security Committee, said in a social media post that American involvement in managing traffic in the strait would violate the three-week-long ceasefire.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Iran began blocking maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz in March. The United States enacted a blockade of Iranian ports<\/a> \u2014 redirecting ships heading to or from those destinations from passing through the strait \u2014 on April 13. That came two days after two Navy destroyers crossed the strait to prepare for a mine-clearance operation. As of May 3, the U.S. has redirected 49 commercial ships as part of the blockade, CENTCOM said in a social media post on Sunday, prior to the announcement of the new project. U.S. forces have also boarded and seized ships since enacting the blockade, including one instance on April 19 when the destroyer the USS Spruance fired on<\/a> and disabled an Iranian-flagged ship after it refused to comply with the Navy.\u00a0<\/p>\n There have continued to be minor incidents around the waterway, with a number of ships reporting having been fired on, although not severely damaged. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations, a British agency that monitors sea trade, reported that a cargo ship had been attacked on Sunday<\/a> on the northern side of the strait. A second ship, a tanker, was hit off of the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the early hours of Monday, the UKMTO said<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two aircraft carriers \u2014 the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush \u2014 are operating in the Arabian Sea, alongside more than a dozen guided-missile destroyers. Additionally, the Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, led by the amphibious assault ship USS Tripoli, is also in the area. That is carrying elements of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit including aircraft.\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t Task & Purpose Video<\/p>\n Each week on Tuesdays and Fridays our team will bring you analysis of military tech, tactics, and doctrine.<\/p>\n \t\u00a0<\/p>\n Nicholas Slayton is a Contributing Editor for Task & Purpose. In addition to covering breaking news, he writes about history, shipwrecks, and the military\u2019s hunt for unidentified anomalous phenomenon (formerly known as UFOs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Get Task & Purpose in your inbox Sign up for Task & Purpose Today to get the latest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96404,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[9911,2656,102,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-96403","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-adsafety","9":"tag-central-command","10":"tag-hormuz","11":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116513782096217764","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96403","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=96403"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96403\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96403"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96403"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96403"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/1777859108_144_250319-N-ML799-1660K.jpeg\")
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