Watch Live: Hegseth, Caine give Iran war update after U.S. and Iran trade fire in Strait of Hormuz

Iran war update: Pentagon chiefs brief after U.S. warship and Iran forces exchange fire in Hormuz

Muhammad Asghar | GlobalBeat

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Marine Gen. Eric Caine will brief reporters at 6 p.m. ET after American and Iranian gunners traded shots in the Strait of Hormuz.

The exchange began when the destroyer USS Laboon intercepted an Iranian speedboat that had fired a rocket-propelled grenade, U.S. Central Command said. Return fire from the warship killed at least 2 IRGC sailors, Tehran acknowledged.

Crude prices leapt 5 percent on the news. Roughly 21 percent of the world’s seaborne oil passes through the 21-mile-wide waterway, making any clash there an immediate jolt to global markets.

Hegseth walked into the briefing room at the Pentagon 28 minutes late. Cameras caught him conferring with Caine, the Joint Staff operations director, and a Middle East hand from the National Security Council. The secretary carried no notes, only a single sheet of paper folded lengthwise.

Caine opened with a chronology. At 11:42 a.m. local time, an IRGC Navy patrol craft closed to 800 yards off the Laboon’s port quarter. The boat ignored bridge-to-bridge warnings, then launched what Caine called “a shoulder-fired RPG that splashed 100 yards short.” The Laboon’s starboard .50-caliber mount returned fire within 30 seconds, he said. A second Iranian vessel arrived 6 minutes later and fired rifles. A Libyan-flagged tanker, the Amal, transmitted a mayday after a ricochet struck its accommodation block. No merchant crew were wounded, Caine said.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations released a one-line statement blaming “aggressive maneuvers” by the Americans. The IRGC’s own communique claimed its boats were answering a distress call from an Iranian fishing dhow and accused the U.S. destroyer of “unprovoked shooting.” Tehran put its own toll at 3 dead and 1 missing.

The Pentagon has moved the cruiser USS Philippine Sea and Coast Guard cutter Emlen Tunnell north from Oman, doubling the American combatants inside the strait. A carrier, the USS Harry S. Truman, steams 200 miles south in the Arabian Sea but has not been ordered in, Caine said.

Oil traders reacted instantly. Brent crude for July delivery touched $91.40 a barrel, its highest since October. Shipping monitor TankerTrackers counted 18 very-large crude carriers already inside the strait; four turned back toward Abu Dhabi, data showed. The price spike will add roughly 15 cents to the average U.S. gallon of gasoline within a week, energy consultancy ClearView estimated.

European governments urged restraint. France’s foreign ministry called for “maximum responsibility,” while Britain summoned both ambassadors in London. “Escalation helps no one,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy told reporters. China’s delegation at the UN requested an emergency Security Council session for Friday morning, diplomats said.

Inside Washington, the incident reignited debate over Trump’s 2025 decision to scrap the nuclear accord that Biden had restored. Sen. Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, urged “decisive retaliation,” arguing the IRGC navy had already harassed 47 merchant vessels this year. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy countered that leaving the atomic deal left the U.S. “flying blind” on uranium monitoring and forced reliance on gunboat diplomacy.

The Hormuz clash is the bloodiest since April 2025, when a similar encounter killed 1 British sailor off Fujairah. Then, both sides pulled back after a 48-hour standoff. This time the rhetoric is sharper. Iranian state TV ran a banner reading “Persian Gulf belongs to Iran,” while Trump posted on Truth Social that the U.S. Navy “will shoot to destroy any hostile act.” Hegseth on Tuesday echoed the president, telling reporters “the rules of engagement are permissive.”

shipping under escort. The Pentagon calculates the strait needs at least 3 U.S. warships on station at all times to keep lanes open, up from the usual 1. Hegseth said he will ask allies for contributions but gave no names.

Insurance rates for supertankers transiting Hormuz jumped 30 percent in afternoon trading in London, according to the Baltic Exchange. A single voyage premium now tops $800,000, enough to erase the profit on carrying 2 million barrels if spot crude dips below $85. Analysts fear a repeat of 2019, when six tankers were attacked and shipping temporarily halted.

Background

Tensions have simmered since Trump withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. Iran responded by breaching uranium limits and seizing or harassing more than 100 merchant ships since 2019. The strait, only 21 miles wide at its narrowest, is the chokepoint linking Persian Gulf producers to the Indian Ocean. U.S. naval forces have patrolled there since 1949, but the IRGC’s small fast boats, often equipped with rocket launchers, have exploited shallow coastal waters to stage hit-and-run approaches.

The last major naval engagement was in 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war, when U.S. forces sank two Iranian warships and a frigate in Operation Praying Mantis after the mining of the USS Samuel B. Roberts. Since then, both sides have sought to calibrate force, using warning shots rather than aimed fire. Tuesday’s clash changes that calculation, showing live rounds can strike home within seconds.

What’s Next

Hegseth said he will travel to Brussels next week to press NATO defence ministers for a maritime patrol contribution, while the State Department waived export-license requirements for Gulf allies to buy more Patriot interceptors. Markets now watch whether Iran resumes uranium enrichment to 90 percent, a short technical step from weapons grade, or targets Israeli shipping in retaliation. Either move would force Trump to decide between accepting higher escalation or reopening nuclear negotiations he campaigned against.

GlobalBeat will monitor the Truman carrier group’s orders and any night-time redeployment of Iranian missile batteries along the northern strait coast. For now, every tanker captain transiting Hormuz must sail expecting gunfire.