The mission, announced by President Donald Trump on Sunday and swiftly backed by a CENTCOM force of more than 100 aircraft, unmanned platforms and 15,000 service members, aims to restore the free flow of commercial shipping through a waterway that once handled roughly 130 vessels per day. That figure has now collapsed to a trickle. According to S&P Global Market Intelligence, only six ships transited the strait on Monday; by Tuesday afternoon just one had followed.
Iran Responds with Force
According to the Iranian newspaper Etemad, day one of the operation was anything but peaceful. The USS Truxtun and USS Mason — the two destroyers involved — navigated what U.S. defense officials described as a "sustained barrage" of Iranian cruise missiles, drones and fast-attack boats. American helicopters sank at least six small Iranian vessels, and incoming missiles were shot down. Neither U.S. warship was struck, though at least one commercial vessel caught fire after being targeted, and the United Arab Emirates separately reported intercepting Iranian ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones that injured three people on its territory.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned ships attempting to transit the strait that they would face a "decisive response." Tehran also issued a new map expanding its declared area of control in the waterway and demanded that vessels seek Iranian permission before passage — the mirror image of Washington's push for an alternative southern lane running closer to Omani waters.
A Slow Road Back to Normal
Despite the White House framing the operation as a success, independent analysts are deeply sceptical that military muscle alone can restore normalcy, stresses the Etemad. "Project Freedom is unlikely to be a completely decisive solution to Gulf maritime insecurity, but rather a limited, high-risk deterrence experiment," said Jack Kennedy, head of Middle East country risk at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Navin Das, a senior analyst at shipping-data firm Kpler, was equally blunt: "I don't think this meaningfully changes anything. The shipping industry is still not willing to accept the risk and go back into the strait." Beyond physical threats to crew and vessels, Das pointed to reputational damage as a deterrent: "If you're actually one of the first to take that risk and you get targeted, the reputational and liability risk is enormous."
Former senior U.S. Navy official Brian Clark, now a fellow at the Hudson Institute, told the Wall Street Journal that Washington has effectively run out of escalatory options. "They've already reached the maximum level of escalation possible, but Tehran has not backed down," he said, adding that the administration has concluded its only remaining lever is to attempt to revive shipping traffic directly.
Leverage, Not Liberation
The deeper logic of Project Freedom may be diplomatic rather than military. Iran, though battered in the 40-day conflict with the U.S. and Israel, seized an asymmetric trump card by throttling the strait — delivering what analysts describe as the worst oil-supply shock in history. In April, Washington responded by blockading Iranian ports, cutting off Tehran's oil revenues. The naval push now represents a third phase: an attempt to demonstrate to Iran that its leverage over global energy markets is not absolute, and to strengthen Washington's hand ahead of ongoing nuclear and security negotiations.
Yet the limits of that strategy are real. Matthew Savill of the Royal United Services Institute captured the problem succinctly: "Control of the strait is not purely a question of raw military power. It depends on trust — the trust of markets, insurers and civilian shipping." Until those actors feel confident that Iran cannot or will not strike again, even a formidable U.S. naval presence may not be enough to move the needle. For energy markets and governments worldwide awaiting a resumption of normal flows through Hormuz, Project Freedom offers a statement of intent — but not, at least not yet, a solution.