President Donald Trump speaks before signing a proclamation in the Oval Office on Tuesday.A BBC correspondent branded Donald Trump “erratic” after he ditched his latest attempt to re-open the Strait of Hormuz barely a day after launching it.
The US president claimed he was temporarily ending Project Freedom “based on the request of Pakistan and other countries”.
He said it was being “paused for a short period of time” to see whether a peace deal could be agreed to end the war in Iran.
His comments, in a post on Truth Social, came just hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio said Project Freedom was needed to save “23,000 civilians from 87 different countries that are trapped ... and left for dead in the Persian Gulf.”
Iran has affectively closed the Strait of Hormuz – a vital waterway which carried one-fifth of the world’s oil supply before the war – since America and Israel started bombing the country on February 28.
Since then, more than 1,000 tankers have been left stranded in the region.
Trump announced at the weekend that the US Navy would “guide” stranded ships through the Strait.
However, only two made it through before he announced that Project Freedom was being halted.
On Radio 4′s Today programme on Wednesday, BBC US correspondent David Willis said: “What are we to make of all this? Well, Project Freedom had antagonised Iran, which had fired missiles and drones at US forces in the area.
“And Iran had threatened to effectively put an end to the fragile ceasefire by maintaining control of the Strait of Hormuz. Added to which it had only led to the passage of two merchant ships through the Strait, albeit it had only been in effect for a day.
“Did the US, I wonder, perhaps feel it was backfiring? We’ll have to wait and see.”
He added: ”[It has been] a head-spinning day even by Donald Trump’s somewhat erratic standards.
“The question now is where does this leave the 1,600 or so ships that remain stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, some of which have been there for getting on three months now.
“The US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, said earlier that hundreds of commercial vessels were lining up to be guided through the Strait of Hormuz by the US navy. What happens to them now, and indeed the precious commodities such as oil and fertiliser that the US was also hoping to liberate?”
Subscribe to Commons People, the podcast that makes politics easy. Every week, Kevin Schofield and Kate Nicholson unpack the week’s biggest stories to keep you informed. Join us for straightforward analysis of what’s going on at Westminster.
Bengali (Bangladesh) · 
English (United States) ·