00:00We start you off with breaking news. President Trump now releasing on his social media accounts
00:05that Project Freedom will be paused for a short time. Remember, Project Freedom is an initiative
00:11by the U.S. to help ships leave the Strait of Hormuz. President Trump saying that he wants to
00:16see if an agreement can be finalized with Iran. But the important thing here is that the blockade
00:22will remain in full force, something that we had heard from Defense Secretary Hicks said,
00:26as well that the U.S. naval blockade of uranium ports remains in full effect. Although U.S.
00:32officials had said before that the likes of Project Freedom, the operation in order to guide neutral
00:38ships through the Strait of Hormuz, is actually defensive and temporary. And we're now hearing
00:43President Trump just confirming that Project Freedom has been paused for what he calls a short period of
00:49time. We have heard from U.S. officials that more than 1,500 commercial vessels and about 22,000
00:56sailors are trapped in the Persian Gulf. With this news, we have seen, of course, a reaction already
01:01in the commodity space. Heidi? Yeah, Shari, of course, there were concerns that the so-called
01:07Project Freedom would potentially reignite these tensions with Iran. And we're now seeing that pause.
01:13We're hearing that the president saying that he's taking the action at the request of Pakistan and
01:17other countries, but that the blockade from the U.S. of ships transiting to and from Iranian ports
01:21remain in full force and effect. Let's bring our senior editor for U.S. economics and government,
01:27Derek Wallbank. And Derek, tell us about sort of your assessment of what we're seeing in terms of
01:32Trump's latest comments, given the sort of background of underlying concerns over Project Freedom and the
01:38implications that it held. Well, Heidi, change is a constant in this situation with Iran and the
01:45Strait of Hormuz. Look, the White House has come out throughout the day today. Marco Rubio was at the
01:52White House briefing reporters, really framing where we are with Iran in terms of a Strait of Hormuz
02:01sort of framework. You were hearing him talk about the importance of maritime freedom, the importance of
02:08trade, the idea that Iran could not be allowed to choke off an international waterway through which
02:15so much of the world's energy trade goes. Rubio at one point said that, you know, if Iran were ever
02:21allowed to get a nuclear weapon, gasoline could get run up to $9 a gallon in the United States and
02:27nobody in the world could do anything about it, and was talking in those sort of framing ways. Now,
02:32Trump, you know, one of the things that Rubio said that was really, really interesting there was he was
02:39putting a very firm point on the idea that the initial phase of the U.S. actions in Iran,
02:46epi-fury, that's done, that's concluded now. Now we're into this new phase, and you're seeing here
02:52a move from the United States really resisting the idea of escalating further. You know, Washington has
03:01been very clear that even though there had been provocations that they say from Iran, Iran continues to
03:08block the Strait of Hormuz, continues to, you know, go do all the things it has been doing,
03:14the United States is clear that the ceasefire has not been broken, they're still sort of moving on
03:19there. At the same time, even though the U.S. is pausing on this idea of running ships through the
03:26Strait of Hormuz, they are saying that the blockade against ships that are going to Iranian ports is
03:32going to be maintained while we look for this deal. Now, are we anywhere closer to a deal? That's much
03:39harder to say. Remember, we've seen comments from Iran that say that the United States' asks are well
03:46beyond its own red lines, as well as the United States sticking to red lines that Iran has previously
03:52not been willing to reach. So we still have seen, at least publicly, that impasse there. So very much a
04:00lot
04:00to process here. A lot of changes going on, but that constant what's going to happen with that key
04:07vital waterway, that is very much at the center of questions right now.
Comments