MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Iran says it is looking at a U.S. proposal to end the war. This comes after a U.S. military operation to wrangle control of the Strait of Hormuz from Iran, an operation that ended after less than 48 hours. It was dubbed Project Freedom. It was described only yesterday by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as, quote, a "gift" from the United States to the world. But hours later, President Trump hit pause on the operation. Joining me to discuss the latest from the Gulf is NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Hey there.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Hey.
KELLY: Hey. So go back many, many, many hours ago, all the way to Monday and tell me why Project Freedom was even launched in the first place.
BATRAWY: Yeah, you know, the Strait of Hormuz is a choke point in global shipping. It's just 20 miles wide at its narrowest point. And it was open to well over a hundred ships a day to transit through before the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. But, you know, since then, Iran has controlled access, laying mines and firing at ships trying to break that impasse.
And so what that's done is it's taken some 13 million barrels of oil a day off the market. But it's also affecting the export of liquefied natural gas and fertilizers, aluminum, helium, all these products that come from this region. And so, while, you know, efforts to hold direct talks between the U.S. and Iran are stalling, you've seen the price of gasoline in the U.S. now topping $4.50 a gallon on average, according to AAA. And Trump's approval ratings are plummeting.
So Project Freedom was Trump's attempt at getting that strait open. And on Monday, the U.S. military helped guide two U.S.-flagged commercial vessels through, but it took force. The military says several Iranian speedboats were sunk. And Iran responded by firing missiles and drones at the Navy and at the United Arab Emirates, where I got incoming missile alerts on my phone again, disrupting life here in Dubai and across the country. So by Tuesday night, though, this operation that threatened to unravel the ceasefire was abruptly called off.
KELLY: And what has President Trump actually said about his thinking, his reasoning for ending it, as you just said, so abruptly?
BATRAWY: Yeah, I mean, Mary Louise, this was so abrupt that a person briefed on the matter not authorized to speak to the media told NPR that even Israel did not know about Trump's intention to end Project Freedom and had actually been preparing for an escalation. So what Trump says is he paused the operation because of what he calls great progress in reaching a final deal with Iran. And there were calls from countries in the region to Trump as well.
In a post on X, Pakistan's prime minister, who's mediating between the U.S. and Iran, thanked Trump for pausing this operation. And he said that he and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had asked Trump to do just that and move toward reconciliation. But also, there's the reality that ship owners and insurers were very apprehensive and cool to this idea. And it also threatened the ceasefire by engulfing the UAE, which had an oil terminal struck by Iran in response to that U.S. operation. And its oil output plummeted to just half a million barrels yesterday because of a raging fire that it caused.
KELLY: Back up, Aya, to something you just said, that President Trump says he paused the operation because there's been great progress in reaching a deal with Iran. Is that true? Are there signs of that?
BATRAWY: Well, it's been nearly a month since Vice President JD Vance met with Iran's delegation for talks in Pakistan. And we know that since then, Iran has sent a few proposals over, one of which Trump recently rejected because it had pushed nuclear talks to a later stage. Remember, that was the whole reason for why he said he launched this war. It was nuclear enrichment. But Iran then drafted another proposal, and it appears the U.S. has now responded to that. Iran's foreign minister says Tehran is now reviewing that text.
Now, Iran says its main demand is a guaranteed end to the war. So no more attacks by Israel either. And they also want that naval blockade lifted. There's a naval blockade out at sea blocking Iranian ships from getting to their ports. And so today, the U.S. military central command actually says a fighter jet shot an Iranian ship trying to evade that blockade, taking out its rudder. So while Trump ended efforts to take control of the strait, that blockade is still going on. And Trump on Truth Social today said the bombing will start again if Iran doesn't agree to his terms, but he didn't outline what those are.
KELLY: NPR's Aya Batrawy in Dubai. Thanks for your reporting.
BATRAWY: Thanks so much.
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