President Donald Trump has broken Iran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz after the U.S. Navy cleared mines from the strategic waterway and opened additional shipping routes in what American officials are calling a “watershed moment.”
The move has sharply diminished Tehran’s leverage over global energy markets while Washington simultaneously chokes off the regime’s own oil revenue.
Trump announced Tuesday the Navy had removed or detonated all mines from international waters in the Strait of Hormuz, capping a months-long American operation to neutralize one of Iran’s most powerful remaining tools of economic pressure.
“I have just been informed by the United States Navy that all mines have been removed and/or detonated from within the International Waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president coupled the announcement with a warning that Iran had been notified that any vessel attempting to lay new mines would be “immediately and systematically destroyed,” declaring a “Zero Tolerance” policy on mine placement. He added that the United States was using Space Force capabilities to watch “every square inch” of the strait, while also monitoring Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain facility and its three previously destroyed nuclear sites.
The announcement followed a months-long U.S. operation that has fundamentally altered the balance of power over the waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas shipments passed before the war began.
U.S. Navy underwater drones spent months systematically scanning the Strait of Hormuz and identifying more than 100 objects suspected of being mines, Axios reported, before private contractors were brought in to remove or detonate them.
The Navy has now cleared the Traffic Separation Scheme (TSS), the principal shipping corridor running between Iran and Oman, while U.S. officials separately confirmed that mines have been cleared from both entry and exit routes — opening an additional passage and allowing substantially more maritime traffic to move through the strait under American protection.
U.S. officials described the breakthrough as a “watershed moment,” saying the mine-clearing operation had largely neutralized one of Tehran’s principal remaining sources of leverage over global energy markets.
“The Iranians have lost control over the strait. Now the U.S. controls it,” one U.S. official said.
The consequences are already becoming increasingly visible across the Gulf. More than 500 ships have reportedly passed through the southern channel over the past month, with the newly cleared routes now allowing vessels to move in both directions as Washington seeks to push ever-greater quantities of Gulf energy into global markets.
At least 15 ship-to-ship transfer operations involving roughly 25 million barrels of crude were underway in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday alone, according to maritime intelligence service TankerTrackers, which noted that the oil originated from nearly every country in the region — except Iran.
Iran’s own principal oil-export hub, meanwhile, is largely sitting idle. Almost no tankers have been spotted at Kharg Island over the past two weeks as the U.S. naval blockade deprives Tehran of critical revenue, according to American officials.
That growing asymmetry is now at the center of the Trump administration’s strategy: flood global markets with energy moving safely through Hormuz while bottling up Iran’s own exports and tightening the financial pressure on a regime already confronting a collapsing currency and mounting economic shortages.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has told foreign ministers from several allied countries that the United States does not expect to initiate another major round of strikes against Iran “for the time being,” while making clear that Washington retains the option of striking back if Tehran launches new attacks.
Instead, the administration is concentrating on enforcing the naval blockade, escalating the economic offensive through Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s newly launched Operation Economic Outcast, and moving as much oil as possible through Hormuz and into global energy markets.
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“The Iranian economy is in free fall and the regime’s military has been decimated,” State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott said, adding that Washington is “cutting off every financial lifeline the regime has remaining.”
Bessent has described the new sanctions offensive as an effort to economically “asphyxiate” the Iranian regime, threatening secondary sanctions against foreign governments, financial institutions, and businesses that continue providing Tehran with access to international markets.
The pressure campaign widened further Tuesday as Bessent spoke with Bahrain’s Minister of Finance and National Economy, Shaikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, stressing that Iran cannot be permitted to threaten international commerce or wield Hormuz as leverage against the global economy.
Following the call, Bessent vowed that Washington would continue working with Bahrain and other international partners to “cripple the threat of the Iranian regime.”
The American breakthrough in Hormuz also threatens to overtake nearly three months of Iranian efforts to turn control of the waterway into a bargaining chip in negotiations with Oman and ultimately Washington.
Iran and Oman announced Tuesday that they had discussed a phased framework establishing a temporary joint navigation corridor and mine-clearing project, with technical negotiations continuing toward a permanent route and future arrangements for managing the strait.
Omani Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi called his talks in Tehran with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi “constructive” and said he hoped a temporary corridor and practical arrangements to restore safe navigation could soon be announced.
Araghchi, meanwhile, portrayed the proposal as evidence of a regional solution, highlighting plans for a “new corridor, joint mine-clearing, and future management of Hormuz.”
Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi went further, insisting that Tehran would not consider the strait fully reopened unless Washington met a series of sweeping Iranian demands, including lifting the economic blockade and ending hostilities on other regional fronts. He said Tehran ultimately envisioned replacing the existing maritime traffic system with a permanent Iran-Oman arrangement and closing the southern route used by U.S.-protected shipping.
But the American operation has already dramatically changed the reality Iran is attempting to negotiate: U.S. officials say the cleared mines and rapidly increasing tanker traffic have deprived Tehran of a major card in any future talks and effectively rendered a prospective Iran-Oman agreement over control of the strait irrelevant.
“Right now we are not negotiating with Iran. We are squeezing them,” one U.S. official said. “The pressure could drive the Iranians back to the table.”
The White House has likewise stressed that no negotiations with Tehran are currently underway or scheduled despite renewed Pakistani mediation. Pakistani army chief Field Marshal Asim Munir traveled to Tehran earlier this week after reportedly speaking with Trump as Islamabad continued efforts to revive a diplomatic track between the two sides.
Rubio’s current posture is expected to remain in place at least through the November midterm elections, although neither he nor War Secretary Pete Hegseth has ruled out renewed military action should Iran resume hostilities.
White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who have led negotiations with Tehran, are expected to visit U.S. Central Command on Wednesday for briefings on the situation on the ground.
For now, Washington is tightening the pressure without returning to major combat — keeping Iran’s principal oil-export hub largely idle, cutting the regime off from international finance, moving growing quantities of Gulf energy through an increasingly open Strait of Hormuz, and stripping Tehran of the leverage it spent months trying to preserve.
As one U.S. official put it: “The Iranians have lost control over the strait. Now the U.S. controls it.”
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jklein@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.