The U.S.-Iran ceasefire is under strain as Washington escorts ships through the Strait of Hormuz and the UAE reports renewed Iranian attacks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that the U.S.-Iran ceasefire “certainly holds” for now, even as a U.S. effort to move commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz triggered military clashes and the United Arab Emirates reported a second day of Iranian missile and drone attacks.
The standoff has quickly become the most serious test of the April 8 truce. Washington is pressing ahead with Project Freedom, a temporary U.S. military operation to guide commercial vessels through the strategic waterway, while Iran says the American effort and a U.S. blockade of Iranian ports violate the ceasefire.
Hegseth told reporters the ship-guidance effort is “a separate and distinct project” from the wider conflict and said President Donald Trump would decide whether any Iranian action crossed the line into a ceasefire violation. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the clashes so far remained below the threshold for restarting major combat operations.
U.S. Central Command said two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz on Monday with U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers operating in the region. Maersk said one of those ships, the Alliance Fairfax, a U.S.-flagged vessel operated by Farrell Lines, a subsidiary of Maersk Line Ltd., completed the passage without incident and that its crew was safe.
The operation came under fire almost immediately. U.S. officials said Navy forces defended the commercial ships from Iranian missiles, drones and small boats. Trump said U.S. forces destroyed seven or eight Iranian small boats during the encounter. Iran disputed U.S. accounts of the clash, with state TV reporting an Iranian commander’s claim that two civilian cargo boats were hit and five civilians were killed.
The UAE, a key U.S. partner, said Tuesday that its air defenses were responding to missile and drone attacks originating from Iran. The UAE had said Iran fired 15 missiles and drones on Monday, including an attack that sparked a fire at the Fujairah Petroleum Industries Zone and wounded three Indian nationals. Arab interior ministers condemned the renewed attacks on the UAE, according to Syrian state news agency SANA.
Iranian officials have rejected Washington’s framing of the crisis. Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said Iran bears “no hostility toward Arab countries of the Gulf” and blamed the U.S. military presence for insecurity in the region. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned on social media that the U.S. and UAE should avoid being drawn back into a “quagmire,” saying the Hormuz crisis showed there was “no military solution to a political crisis.”
The stakes extend well beyond the Gulf. Before the war, roughly 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas moved through the Strait of Hormuz. Shipping traffic has remained heavily disrupted, and only two merchant ships are known to have passed the new U.S.-guarded route so far. Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world’s largest container shipping companies, said its risk assessment had not changed and that Hormuz transits were not possible for its ships for the moment.
Caine said more than 100 U.S. military aircraft were providing overwatch around the strait, and Hegseth said American destroyers and surveillance assets were positioned to protect peaceful commercial vessels. But U.S. officials have not provided a fuller public schedule for future ship movements, and shippers and insurers remain cautious as the risk of renewed attacks persists.
For now, Washington is trying to reopen one of the world’s most important energy corridors without collapsing the ceasefire it says remains in force. The next test will be whether more commercial operators are willing to follow the two U.S.-flagged ships through the strait — and whether Iran responds with restraint or another round of fire.
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