WASHINGTON, April 26: President Donald Trump says the U.S. Navy is clearing Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz, a vital sea route for oil shipments whose disruption is increasingly threatening the global economy.
Sweeping for underwater explosives could take months despite a tenuous ceasefire between the United States and Iran in the weekslong war, experts say. Any future claims that the U.S. cleared the waterway where 20% of the world’s oil typically passes might fail to convince commercial freighters and their insurers that it is finally safe.
“You don’t even have to have lain mines — you just have to make people believe that you’ve laid mines,” said Emma Salisbury, a scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s National Security Program.
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“And even if the U.S. sweeps the strait and says everything’s clear, all the Iranians have to do is say, ‘Well, actually, you haven’t found them all yet,’” said Salisbury, who is also a fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre. “There’s only so much the U.S. can do to give that confidence back to commercial shipping.”
Seeking out mines is one of the latest tactics announced by the Trump administration to get traffic moving again through the strait as rising energy prices and wider economic effects pose a political risk. The U.S. also has blockaded Iran’s ports and seized ships tied to Tehran, but the president said Saturday he had instructed his envoys not to travel to Pakistan for the latest ceasefire talks after Iran’s top diplomat left Islamabad.
Pentagon officials told lawmakers it would likely take six months to clear the mines that Iran has set in the strait, according a person familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive information. The information was delivered during a classified briefing at the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.
When asked about the estimate, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters Friday that the military would not speculate on a timeline, but he did not deny it.
“Allegedly that was something that was said,” Hegseth said at a Pentagon news conference. “But we feel confident in our ability, in the correct period of time, to clear any mines that we identify.”
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