Trump orders airstrikes on Iran after attack on commercial ship

President Donald Trump ordered retaliatory airstrikes on Iran after drones hit a commercial ship in the Strait of Hormuz, putting a fragile ceasefire and a key global shipping lane back at risk. The U.S. military struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations and coastal radar sites on Friday, June 26, after Trump said Iran had launched at least four drones at ships a day earlier.

One drone hit the upper deck of the Singapore-flagged cargo ship M/V Ever Lovely. Three others were shot down by the U.S., crossing the threshold Trump and his advisers treated as a direct challenge to the truce that was meant to keep the strait open to commercial traffic.

The ceasefire agreement, signed last week as a 60-day memorandum of understanding, said the Strait of Hormuz would reopen and that commercial vessels would be allowed safe passage without charge. U.S. Central Command said the attack on commercial shipping “clearly violated the ceasefire” and undermined freedom of navigation in one of the world’s most sensitive trade corridors.

The choice of targets signaled a limited response. The strikes hit storage sites and coastal radar positions rather than a wider set of military or political targets, leaving room for either a step back into deterrence or a sharper slide into regional conflict. The Strait of Hormuz carried about 20% of the world’s oil before the war, and any sustained disruption would ripple quickly through shipping costs, energy markets and the U.S. military posture in the Gulf.

Vice President JD Vance, who has played a lead role in the negotiations, said Iran had signed the ceasefire and that the United States had honored it, warning that “violence will be met with violence.” Ebrahim Azizi, head of the Iranian parliament’s national security commission, accused the United States of attacking while negotiations were still ongoing. Iran said it retaliated for the U.S. strikes and claimed a projectile hit the area around a pier in Sirik, in southern Iran. The ceasefire’s credibility now rests on whether both sides treat the latest exchange as a warning or a precedent.