US Navy to Begin Escorting Stranded Ships from Strait of Hormuz on Monday

On Sunday evening, President Donald Trump announced that the US military would begin escorting commercial vessels through the Strait of Hormuz starting Monday morning, dubbing the operation "Project Freedom" and calling it a "humanitarian gesture" for countries whose ships have been trapped in the waterway since Iran effectively closed it on March 4 [1]. The announcement came as Iran's 14-point peace proposal to end the war sat rejected by the White House, and as the ceasefire that began April 7 showed signs of fracturing [2].

US Central Command confirmed it would "support merchant vessels seeking to freely transit through the essential international trade corridor," deploying guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 land- and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and approximately 15,000 service members [3]. The force package will operate alongside the existing US naval blockade of Iranian ports, which has been in place since April 13 [4].

The question now is whether this operation clears a humanitarian crisis — or triggers the next phase of the war.

The Scale of the Crisis: 1,900 Vessels and 20,000 Seafarers

The Strait of Hormuz, 21 nautical miles wide at its narrowest point, carried roughly 25% of the world's seaborne oil trade and 20% of global liquefied natural gas shipments before the crisis [5]. Since Iran declared the strait closed on March 4, traffic has collapsed by approximately 95%, from around 82 ships per day to fewer than five [6].

Source: Windward Maritime Intelligence / LSEG

Data as of May 3, 2026CSV

Estimates of stranded vessels vary. The Anadolu Agency reported approximately 1,900 vessels unable to move in the vicinity of the strait as of late April, including 324 bulk carriers, 315 oil and chemical product carriers, 267 petroleum product tankers, 211 crude oil tankers, and 143 LNG/LPG carriers [7]. The International Chamber of Shipping has counted roughly 20,000 seafarers aboard these ships [8].

Source: Anadolu Agency / Windward Maritime Intelligence

Data as of May 3, 2026CSV

Analytics firm Vortexa estimated that around 190 million barrels of crude oil and petroleum products sit aboard tankers stranded in the region [9]. At recent WTI prices near $100 per barrel, that cargo alone represents roughly $19 billion in stranded oil value — before accounting for LNG, dry goods, and container freight.

Not all flags have been equally affected. Iran has selectively allowed passage for ships from countries it considers "friendly" — primarily those flying the flags of Pakistan, India, Turkey, Russia, and China — sometimes in exchange for fees paid in yuan [10]. Ships from Western-aligned nations have had no such option.

Legal Authority: War Powers, UNCLOS, and the Earnest Will Precedent

The legal foundation for "Project Freedom" is contested on multiple fronts.

Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the Strait of Hormuz is governed by a "transit passage" regime that guarantees all vessels the right to continuous and expeditious transit [11]. Iran's closure of the strait violates this framework. But the US is itself a belligerent in the conflict that provoked the closure, having launched Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28, and its own naval blockade of Iranian ports since April 13 has also been challenged as inconsistent with freedom of navigation principles [12].

The closest historical precedent is Operation Earnest Will (1987–1988), when the US Navy escorted reflagged Kuwaiti tankers through the Persian Gulf during the Iran-Iraq War's "Tanker War" phase [13]. That operation required Kuwait to re-register its vessels under the US flag, creating a legal "genuine link" between the flag state and the escort. The Reagan administration narrowly construed the War Powers Resolution's definition of "hostilities" to avoid triggering the 60-day congressional authorization clock [13].

Trump's legal position is, if anything, more aggressive. The White House told Congress on May 1 that "the hostilities that began on February 28, 2026, have terminated," citing the April 7 ceasefire — an argument that sidesteps the War Powers Resolution's 60-day deadline entirely [14]. Critics call this reasoning flawed. Michael Glennon, a professor of constitutional and international law at Tufts University, told NBC News that the administration's argument "is a stretch," noting that "the hostilities are continuing as a consequence of the administration's enforcement of the blockade" [14]. Constitutional law expert Bruce Fein argued that the resolution "never says anywhere" that a ceasefire pauses the clock [15].

A Chatham House analysis drew a critical legal distinction: under the law of naval warfare, any merchant vessel traveling in convoy under the protection of a belligerent warship becomes subject to attack [11]. Because the US is a belligerent, its escorts may paradoxically increase the legal risk to the very ships they protect. The UN Security Council, in Resolution 2817, confirmed that Gulf littoral states "are not parties to the hostilities," implying that a non-belligerent coalition — not the US — might be better positioned legally to provide escort [11].

Iranian Military Posture and Escalation Risk

Iran's toolkit for controlling the strait includes three main categories: naval mines, IRGC Navy fast boats, and anti-ship missiles and drones.

Mines. US intelligence reported that Iran began laying naval mines in the strait as early as March 10, with additional deployments in late April [16][17]. The mines are typically deployed from small Gashti-class fishing vessels, each capable of carrying two to four mines, making them difficult to detect among hundreds of legitimate small craft [16]. Trump responded by ordering the Navy to "shoot and kill" any boat laying mines and to triple the pace of minesweeping operations [18].

However, USNI News reported that through early May, no vessel had struck a mine — all 29 ships hit by Iranian projectiles were struck by missiles, drones, or direct gunfire [19]. Analysts at the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project explained this as a strategic choice: mines are indiscriminate and would endanger Iranian-approved ships and Chinese vessels, undermining the political and economic leverage that selective passage provides Tehran [19].

Fast boats. The IRGC Navy operates more than 100 small, fast boats alongside ten Chinese-built Houdong-class missile boats [20]. These fiberglass-hulled vessels produce radar cross-sections comparable to wave clutter, making them difficult to distinguish from civilian craft in waters where hundreds of small boats operate daily [21]. The IRGC has used these assets to board and seize merchant ships — including the Liberia-flagged MSC Francesca and Panama-flagged Epaminodes in late April [22].

Missiles and drones. Iran's shore-based anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) cover the full width of the strait. Combined with drone capabilities, these systems allow Iran to threaten escort formations from positions that are difficult to neutralize without strikes on Iranian territory — which would formally end the ceasefire [20].

The IRGC Navy has warned that any military vessel approaching the strait will be treated as a ceasefire violation warranting a "severe response" [23]. How US commanders will respond to physical contact — a fast boat harassment run, a warning shot, a mine discovery — remains unclear. The rules of engagement for Project Freedom have not been publicly disclosed.

The Economic Toll: Oil Prices, Insurance, and Global Exposure

The strait's closure has sent shockwaves through energy markets and shipping finance.

WTI crude oil prices surged from around $60 per barrel in late February to a peak of $114.58 in April, settling near $100 as of late April — a 57.8% year-over-year increase [24].

Source: FRED / EIA

Data as of Apr 27, 2026CSV

War-risk insurance premiums have been equally dramatic. Before the crisis, premiums ran 0.02%–0.05% of a vessel's insured value per transit. By March, they had jumped to 0.5%–1.0%, and leading insurers including Norway's Gard and Skuld and Britain's NorthStandard canceled war-risk coverage for the region entirely [25]. For a tanker valued at $120 million, a single transit premium rose from roughly $40,000 to between $600,000 and $1.2 million [25]. VLCC (Very Large Crude Carrier) freight rates hit an all-time high of $423,736 per day [25].

Source: Euronews / Lloyd's Market Association

Data as of May 3, 2026CSV

The economies most exposed are those most dependent on Gulf oil and gas. China and India together received 44% of crude oil exports transiting the strait before the closure [5]. Japan and South Korea, which import virtually all their oil, are also heavily affected. A Dallas Federal Reserve analysis found that the closure's full economic impact extends well beyond energy prices, disrupting container shipping, dry bulk trade, and petrochemical supply chains across Asia and Europe [26].

The Diplomatic Split: Who Supports Project Freedom?

International reaction has been fractured in ways that reveal deep ambivalence about the US role in the crisis.

A total of 22 countries — including the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates — signed a statement declaring willingness to "contribute to appropriate efforts to ensure safe passage" [3]. The US Department of State launched a companion initiative called the Maritime Freedom Construct to coordinate diplomatic and military action among these partners [3].

But the same countries that signed the statement have been reluctant to provide forces. Germany, Spain, Italy, Estonia, the UK, Australia, South Korea, and Japan all rejected Trump's request for military contributions, citing a lack of strategic goals or reluctance to be drawn into the war [27]. The EU issued a separate statement declining participation [27].

The UK and France have instead announced plans for an independent international naval coalition to protect shipping "as soon as conditions permit following a sustainable ceasefire agreement" — an implicit rebuke of the US decision to proceed unilaterally before the war is resolved [11]. Their proposed coalition would include a ship escort group, a mine countermeasures group, and a maritime domain awareness group — structured specifically to avoid the legal complications of belligerent-state escorts.

Gulf states hosting US bases, particularly Bahrain and the UAE, have publicly endorsed the mission but are navigating their own constraints. UNSC Resolution 2817's confirmation that they are non-parties to the conflict protects them diplomatically, but hosting the escort force's logistics puts that status under pressure [11].

Escort vs. Convoy: A Distinction with Consequences

The terminology matters. An "escort" implies warships accompanying individual merchant vessels. A "convoy" is a formal grouping of merchant ships under naval protection, which under the law of armed conflict can be treated as a military formation and targeted accordingly [11].

The administration has used the words "escort" and "guide" interchangeably, while USNI News reported that a basic escort operation would require eight to ten destroyers to protect convoys of five to ten commercial vessels per transit [28]. If the operation functions as a convoy system in practice, international maritime law allows Iran to treat the entire formation — merchant ships included — as a legitimate military target.

This ambiguity extends to the scope of the commitment. If the US successfully escorts one group of ships, does it become obligated to escort every commercial vessel requesting passage? Critics argue that Project Freedom creates an open-ended security guarantee that Congress never authorized and that could bind the Navy to indefinite presence in the strait [14][15].

The Underlying Dispute: Is Resolution Any Closer?

Iran's 14-point proposal, submitted on May 2, demands resolution of all issues within 30 days rather than the two-month ceasefire the US proposed [29]. Key demands include withdrawal of US forces from Iran's periphery, an end to the naval blockade, release of frozen Iranian assets, payment of reparations, lifting of sanctions, and a new mechanism governing the Strait of Hormuz [29]. Trump reviewed the proposal and declared it "not acceptable" [30].

The gap between the two positions is vast. The US demands center on Iran's nuclear program and dismantlement of its missile capabilities. Iran demands an end to what it characterizes as an unprovoked war of aggression. Neither side has offered meaningful concessions on the strait itself.

Project Freedom, then, addresses a symptom. The roughly 1,900 stranded ships and 20,000 seafarers are trapped not because the US Navy lacks the firepower to push through the strait, but because two concurrent blockades — Iranian and American — have made the waterway a de facto war zone. Even if Monday's operation clears the backlog, the conditions that created it remain intact: the US blockade of Iranian ports continues, Iran's IRGC forces remain deployed along the strait's shores, and the ceasefire is fraying.

The CSIS assessment captured the dilemma: Tehran's drones, naval mines, and swarming small boats "impose risk and uncertainty, even if they are no match for the U.S. Navy" [31]. The question is not whether the US can force the strait open, but whether doing so — while simultaneously maintaining a blockade of Iran — brings the underlying conflict closer to resolution or locks both sides into an escalatory cycle with no off-ramp.

As one senior Iranian official warned, any US interference in the Strait of Hormuz during the ceasefire would itself be considered a violation [4]. Whether that warning is rhetoric or a trigger for renewed hostilities may become clear within hours of Monday's first escort transit.