Secretary Hegseth: Project Freedom is defensive in nature, focused in scope, and temporary in duration. With one mission, protecting innocent commercial shipping from Iranian aggression. American forces won't need to enter Iranian waters or airspace; it's not necessary. We're not looking for a fight, but Iran also cannot be allowed to block innocent countries and their goods from an international waterway. Iran is the clear aggressor, harassing civilian vessels, threatening mariners from every nation, indiscriminately, and weaponizing a critical choke point for it's own financial benefit. At least trying to. For too long, Iran has been harassing ships, shooting at civilian tankers; from all nations, and trying to impose a tolling system. Iran's plan, a form of international extortion, is unacceptable. That ends with Project Freedom.

Chairman Caine: By obstructing one of the world's most critical maritime checkpoints, a vital transit route for approximately one fifth of the global oil consumption, Iran is weaponizing the global supply chain. This action disregards established navigational rights and the Law Of The Sea, and the regime, led by the IRGC, is effectively trying to hold the entire global economy hostage.

Chairman Caine: CENTCOM has established an enhanced security area on the southern side of the Strait, that is now protected by U.S. land, navy, and air assets, to help defeat further Iranian aggression against commercial shipping.

Secretary Hegseth: The ceasefire is not over. Ultimately, this is a separate and distinct project, and we expected there would be some churn at the beginning, which happened. And we said we would defend, and defend aggressively, and we absolutely have. Iran knows that. And ultimately, the president's going to make a decision whether anything were to escalate into a violation of a ceasefire, but certainly, we would urge Iran to be prudent in the actions that they take, to keep that underneath this threshold. This is about the Straits, this is about freedom of navigation, this is about international waterways, this is a bout free flow of commerce; all the things that happened before, and that only Iran is contesting. So right now, the ceasefire certainly hold, but we're going to be watching very, very closely.

Secretary Hegseth: President Trump has led at every step of this, based on his view of American interests and America First, and we are grateful that Israelis have been very capable partners at many steps of this, and they may have some objectives at times that are slightly different than ours, but there's only one hand on the wheel, ultimately directing this. Whether it's Project Freedom, or previously Operation Epic Fury, and it's President Trump. So we're grateful for their input, their insights, the existential nature of the threat they face from an Iranian bomb, the capabilities that they can bring to that, but ultimately, the coordination will happen with the leadership of President Trump.