Trump warns of expanded 'Project Freedom Plus' if Iran walks away from deal

President Donald Trump put Tehran on notice Friday evening, telling reporters outside the White House that the United States could revive and dramatically expand its Strait of Hormuz enforcement campaign if Iran refuses to sign the framework agreement now on the table. The warning came as Washington waited for a formal Iranian response, U.S. Central Command disabled additional Iranian-flagged tankers, and senior Iranian officials fired back with defiant rhetoric of their own.

Trump, speaking before departing for his golf club in Sterling, Virginia, said he expected a letter from Tehran that night.

"I'm getting a letter supposedly tonight, so we'll see how that goes. We'll find out soon enough."

If the answer is no, or if it never comes, Trump made clear the consequences would go well beyond what Iran has already experienced. Breitbart News reported that Trump told reporters the administration would pursue what he called "Project Freedom Plus," an expanded version of the naval escort and blockade enforcement operation that has already produced direct confrontations with Iranian forces in one of the world's most important shipping lanes.

"We may go back to Project Freedom if things don't happen, but it'll be Project Freedom Plus, meaning Project Freedom plus other things."

The deal on the table

The proposed framework agreement has been widely described as a one-page memorandum of understanding aimed at establishing a foundation for broader negotiations covering Iran's nuclear program, sanctions relief, and maritime security arrangements in the Strait of Hormuz. Trump reiterated Thursday that any deal would require Tehran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions and transfer its highly enriched uranium stockpile to the United States.

He left no room for ambiguity about what happens if diplomacy fails. Earlier in the week, Trump warned bluntly that the alternative to agreement is escalation.

"If they don't agree, the bombing starts, and it will be, sadly, at a much higher level and intensity than it was before."

And on the nuclear question specifically, Trump was equally direct.

"We're not going to give them the right to have a nuclear weapon. Zero chance, and they know that."

That posture, deal or face consequences, has defined Trump's approach to Iran throughout this standoff. The question late Friday was whether Tehran would treat the offer as a genuine off-ramp or dismiss it as a pressure tactic.

Three tankers disabled, blockade tightened

While the diplomatic clock ticked, the U.S. military kept enforcing the naval blockade around Iranian ports. CENTCOM announced Friday that American forces had disabled two Iranian-flagged tankers, the M/T Sea Star III and the M/T Sevda, after the vessels allegedly attempted to violate the blockade by entering Iranian ports along the Gulf of Oman. A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet launched from the USS George H.W. Bush fired precision munitions into the vessels' smokestacks, CENTCOM stated.

The command also confirmed that U.S. forces had disabled a third Iranian-flagged tanker, the M/T Hasna, earlier in the week.

"All three vessels are no longer transiting to Iran."

Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, said American forces "remain committed to full enforcement of the blockade of vessels entering or leaving Iran." CENTCOM released footage of the disabling operations and separately posted an image of a U.S. Air Force F-16 operating over the Middle East, a signal that air assets remain in position.

The tanker operations followed a more serious confrontation the day before. CENTCOM reported that three U.S. Navy destroyers, the USS Truxtun, the USS Rafael Peralta, and the USS Mason, came under what the command described as "unprovoked Iranian attacks" while transiting the Strait of Hormuz toward the Gulf of Oman. U.S. forces said they "eliminated inbound threats" and carried out "self-defense strikes" on Iranian military facilities and naval infrastructure.

Fox News reported that the attack on the Truxtun and Mason involved small boats, missiles, and drones in what officials described as a "sustained barrage." U.S. forces, backed by fighter aircraft and AH-64 Apache helicopters, intercepted or deterred the threats, and neither destroyer was hit.

Trump downplays, then escalates

Trump's public response to the destroyer attack was characteristic. On Thursday evening, he downplayed the retaliatory strikes as "just a love tap" while insisting the ceasefire, brokered last month through Pakistani mediation, remained in effect. On Truth Social, he described the outcome in more vivid terms.

"There was no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers. These boats went to the bottom of the Sea, quickly and efficiently."

By Friday, the tone had shifted from dismissive to forward-looking. Trump acknowledged that Project Freedom, which he had paused Tuesday at the request of Pakistan and other regional countries, might need to come back in a bigger form. He framed the expanded version not as a retreat to the original plan but as an upgrade.

"I think Project Freedom is good, but I think we have other ways of doing it also."

Project Freedom launched Sunday after Trump announced that countries around the world had requested American help guiding stranded commercial vessels safely through the Strait of Hormuz. Under the operation, CENTCOM deployed guided-missile destroyers, more than 100 aircraft, unmanned systems, and approximately 15,000 service members. Just The News reported that U.S. forces quickly destroyed six Iranian fast boats during the operation, with Trump later updating the total to seven after Iran fired on ships involved in the mission, including a South Korean cargo ship.

The pause came Tuesday, but the broader naval blockade around Iranian ports remained, as Trump put it, "in full force and effect." Newsmax reported that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman suspended access to key Saudi bases and airspace needed for the mission, complicating execution even as the U.S. continued broader military and diplomatic pressure on Iran.

That regional friction has not changed Trump's willingness to signal escalation when he believes it is warranted. If anything, the pause gave Tehran a window to negotiate, a window Trump made clear Friday is not open indefinitely.

Tehran's defiant response

Iranian officials spent Friday pushing back hard against Washington's pressure. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, one of Tehran's lead negotiators, posted on X that the United States was sabotaging its own diplomacy.

"Every time a diplomatic solution is on the table, the U.S. opts for a reckless military adventure. Whatever the causes, the outcome is the same: Iranians never bow to pressure."

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei went further, mocking Trump's earlier warning about turning Iran into "one big glow."

"It is a grotesque absurdity that they claim to seek peace and prevent a nuclear crisis, yet their proposed solution is 'one big glow.'"

Perhaps most revealing was the statement from Mohammad Mokhber, an adviser to Iran's supreme leader, who compared Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz to possessing a nuclear weapon and said Tehran would not "forfeit the gains of this war."

"The Strait of Hormuz represents an opportunity as precious as an atomic bomb."

That kind of language, equating a chokepoint for global oil shipments with a weapon of mass destruction, tells you everything about how Tehran views the strait. Not as a shared waterway. Not as a trade route. As leverage. As a weapon in itself.

Trump has repeatedly moved to clarify his red lines on Iran in real time, and the pattern here is consistent: offer a deal, enforce the blockade, and make the cost of refusal unmistakable.

What comes next

Late Friday night, Washington was still waiting for Tehran's formal response to the proposed memorandum of understanding. Trump said he expected a letter. Whether it arrives, and what it says, will determine whether the next phase of this standoff looks more like a negotiating table or more like the expanded military operation Trump described.

The open questions are significant. What specific additional measures would "Project Freedom Plus" include beyond the original deployment? Will regional partners who balked at the first iteration cooperate with a larger one? And will Iran's leadership, caught between internal hard-liners like Mokhber and the reality of a tightening blockade, choose pragmatism or defiance?

Trump's approach throughout this crisis has followed a familiar logic: telegraph the move publicly, back it with force, and let the other side decide how much pain it wants to absorb. The tankers sitting dead in the water off the Gulf of Oman are a preview. The destroyers that sailed through Iranian fire without a scratch are another.

Iran can sign the deal or find out what "Plus" means. That is the choice Trump has put in front of them, and it is not a complicated one.