Tensions remain high in the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz one month after the Trump administration secured a ceasefire agreement with Iran, with top U.S. defense officials confirming Tuesday that the truce still stands while outlining an aggressive new U.S. naval presence in the global oil chokepoint.
Speaking alongside Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters that the ceasefire has held despite expected fluctuations in security, noting that U.S. forces have operated with robust deterrence in the waterway. “The ceasefire is not over,” Hegseth said. “We expected there would be some churn, which happened, and we said we would defend and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have.” He added that while the U.S. is not seeking wider conflict, the administration retains full authority to resume major combat operations against Iran if President Donald Trump judges it necessary.
At the center of the new U.S. posture in the strait is Project Freedom, an initiative formally launched Monday that frames the U.S. military presence as a boon to global commerce. Hegseth described the U.S. deployment as a metaphorical “powerful red, white, and blue dome” over the key shipping route, calling it a “direct gift from the U.S. to the world.” The operation, which he emphasized is separate from the ongoing U.S. military campaign to eliminate Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities that launched February 28, involves U.S. naval forces guiding commercial vessels through the strait.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz dates back more than two months, when Iran blocked the waterway in retaliation for the unprovoked U.S.-Israeli military assault on the country. In response, the U.S. Navy has imposed its own blockade on vessels traveling to and from Iranian ports.
Fresh violence erupted in the area Monday, on the first day of Project Freedom’s formal operations. U.S. Central Command commander Admiral Brad Cooper told reporters that U.S. warships intercepted and shot down Iranian cruise missiles fired by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) at convoys the U.S. was escorting out of the strait. U.S. Army attack helicopters also sank six Iranian military speedboats in the engagement, Cooper said.
However, conflicting accounts of the clash have emerged. Common Dreams reported Tuesday that an IRGC commander told Iranian state media that U.S. forces actually struck two small civilian vessels carrying passengers traveling between Oman’s Khasab coast and Iran, killing five civilians, and hit no IRGC craft.
Hegseth rejected any suggestion of U.S. responsibility for escalation, labeling Iran the sole aggressor in the standoff while repeating that the Trump administration will not hesitate to resume large-scale combat operations if required.
The briefing also touched on a contentious constitutional question: whether the administration would seek congressional authorization before restarting major combat against Iran. Last Friday, ahead of a 60-day deadline set by the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires presidents to end unauthorized military hostilities within that timeline, Trump notified Congress that hostilities with Iran had been terminated following the April 7 ceasefire.
Hegseth argued that the War Powers Act’s 60-day clock stops ticking while the ceasefire is in place, meaning any resumption of combat would fall within the president’s existing authority as commander-in-chief, rather than requiring a new congressional sign-off. “If it were to restart that would be the president’s decision. That option is always there and Iran knows that,” he said.
Critics have pushed back hard against this legal interpretation. NBC News senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen noted that the administration’s reasoning has no precedent in U.S. political practice. Fred Wellman, a Democratic congressional candidate in Missouri, called the framing a deliberate end-run around congressional war powers. “Understand that what he is doing here is desperately trying to avoid the War Powers Act,” Wellman said. “They made up a new interpretation that says the 60-day clock is ‘paused’ for a ceasefire. Now they are lying and saying this is an all-new, shiny war and not the same one.”