U.S. Central Command says one of the world's most important oil chokepoints is finally clear of Iranian sea mines. In a video statement posted early Friday, CENTCOM commander Adm. Brad Cooper announced what he called "a major milestone in the Strait of Hormuz," telling viewers that American divers, Navy SEALs and aircraft had "meticulously and quietly" swept the strait's internationally recognized shipping lanes of mines laid by Iran's Revolutionary Guard months earlier. "The circumstances were challenging and dangerous, to say the least, but we got the job done," Cooper said, according to UPI.

President Trump, who had previewed the announcement a day earlier on Truth Social, put it more bluntly in an interview with Axios: "That sucker is open." He added that Iran's response to the clearance operation has been muted — "very mild," in his words — and argued that's the whole story now: "They don't want us to go back at them. That's the whole ball game. The rest doesn't matter," he told the outlet.

Summary

  • CENTCOM is calling it a "major milestone" after months of quietly sweeping the strait's shipping lanes.
  • But nightly tanker traffic is still roughly half of pre-war levels, and some U.S. allies aren't convinced the waterway is fully clear.
  • U.S. Central Command says one of the world's most important oil chokepoints is finally clear of Iranian sea mines.

Six months of blockade, and a war that hasn't formally ended

The announcement lands almost six months into the U.S. and Israel's joint war against Iran, and more than four months after Washington reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports on April 13. Cooper said American forces have provided coordinated protection to nearly 1,500 commercial vessels moving through the strait since then, escorting cargo that carried roughly 750 million barrels of crude to global markets, according to The National. He said U.S. ships have turned back about 75 vessels attempting to breach the blockade and disabled three that refused to comply.

"Internationally recognized transit routes in the strait are free of Iranian sea mines, thanks to the incredible work of the U.S. military. Bottom line today: international shipping lanes are open and momentum is building."— Adm. Brad Cooper, U.S. Central Command commander

The traffic numbers don't quite match the victory lap

How "open" the strait actually is depends on which number you look at. U.S. officials tell Axios that 20 to 30 tankers are now moving through Hormuz each night, carrying an average of 9 to 10 million barrels — roughly half of what transited the strait before the war began. Trump himself cited a figure of 24 tankers helped through the strait Thursday night, a number CBS News notes is a fraction of the roughly 120 ships that typically passed through daily before the conflict, and shippers reportedly remain wary of the route given Iran's standing threat to strike vessels that transit without coordinating with Tehran first.

There's also a credibility gap among allies. Some U.S. partners told Bloomberg, in reporting cited by CBS News, that they don't believe the strait has actually been fully de-mined. Oil analysts and tanker trackers quoted by Axios are similarly skeptical of the administration's shipping-volume figures, though U.S. officials maintain the real numbers are being undercounted, not inflated. Iran, for its part, has struck roughly 2% of ships transiting the strait over the past month, according to an American official cited by the Times of Israel — a small but real reminder that "cleared of mines" and "safe to sail" aren't the same claim.

What it means for oil markets

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply on an ordinary day, and the on-again, off-again blockade has been a persistent driver of elevated crude prices since the war began. A credible reopening — even a partial one — tends to ease that pressure; continued skepticism about how "open" the route really is tends to keep a risk premium baked into prices. For now, markets appear to be doing what they've done for months: reading the CENTCOM statement as a genuinely positive signal while pricing in that the war, and the danger in the strait, aren't actually over.

Additional reporting referenced from The Hill and the Arab News.