Project Freedom aims to reopen Hormuz Strait. Experts are skeptical

Defense and geopolitical experts are skeptical that “Project Freedom,” the Trump administration’s new effort to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial traffic, will succeed.

“In my view, it’s not a solution at all,” Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a libertarian-leaning foreign policy think tank, said of the operation.

“It doesn’t really address the underlying problem here, which is that the uncertainty about the safety of transit means that ship captains and shipping companies are hesitant to take the risk,” Kavanagh said in a phone interview.

The administration, however, says its day-old effort to defend ships transiting the strait from Iranian attacks is already working.

“We’ve now opened a passage through the Strait of Hormuz to allow for the free flow of commerce to proceed,” U.S. Central Command leader Adm. Brad Cooper said Monday, just hours after Project Freedom commenced.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday that two U.S. commercial ships, accompanied by American destroyers, “have already safely transited the strait, showing the lane is clear.”

“We know the Iranians are embarrassed by this fact,” he boasted. “They said they control the strait. They do not.”

The administration hasn’t put a price tag or timeline on the new mission, though Hegseth said it will be “focused in scope and temporary in duration.”

Analysts who spoke with CNBC questioned whether the operation offers either a short-term or long-term solution to the chokepoint in the strait, the top global oil pathway that is at the center of the ongoing conflict with Iran. Pre-war, the narrow waterway saw 20% of the world’s oil transit through it leaving the Persian Gulf.

The defensive operation, they say, doesn’t sufficiently address or inhibit Iran’s ability to threaten vessels attempting to transit the strait, and so the journey remains too risky for most to attempt.

It could also further fray relations with Iran, leading to increased aggression and prolonging any diplomatic agreement, which may be the only way to return commercial traffic in the strait to pre-war levels.

“Project Freedom is unlikely to be a completely decisive solution to Gulf maritime insecurity, but rather a limited, high‑risk deterrence experiment,” Jack Kennedy, head of Middle East and North Africa country risk at S&P Global Market Intelligence, said in an email.

President Donald Trump announced the operation in a Truth Social post Sunday evening, saying the U.S. has assured countries whose vessels are stuck due to the war that it will “guide their Ships safely out of these restricted Waterways.”

CENTCOM said the U.S. military will deploy “guided-missile destroyers, over 100 land and sea-based aircraft, multi-domain unmanned platforms, and 15,000 service members” to support Project Freedom.

The mission is…