President Trump announced on Sunday that the United States would begin coordinating the movement of commercial vessels out of the Strait of Hormuz, launching an initiative he called Project Freedom and describing it as a humanitarian gesture toward neutral countries whose ships have been stranded by the conflict between Washington and Tehran.
Wall Street Journal reports (gated).
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said governments around the world had approached the US for help freeing vessels locked in the waterway. The initiative is set to begin Monday morning, Middle East time.
A senior US official clarified that Project Freedom is a coordination mechanism through which countries, insurers and shipping organisations can work together to move traffic through the strait. He offered no detail on what role, if any, Tehran was expected to play in the initiative.
The announcement stops short of a direct naval confrontation but places the US in an active role inside one of the world’s most strategically sensitive waterways, at a moment when the broader ceasefire between the US, Israel and Iran remains fragile and unresolved
