Project Freedom: 'Another example of Trump's chaos' | Simon Marks

conversation in the first hour had some echoes of what we have seen unfold in the United States of America and I think one of the least controversial things I can say on this program is that we have been able to navigate all of the things or most of the things going on in the United States of America with expert guidance thanks to Simon Marx's status as our LBC Washington correspondent and lo and behold here he is again.Is it open?Is it closed?Is it closed but a bit open?Is it open but a bit closed?Are Iran right?

Is Trump right?Is it all going well?Is the war over?Has the war been won?Is Iran desperate?Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Morning.Well, we're certainly no further forward, and good morning to you, James.We're certainly no further forward, and we are arguably several steps back.And what we've seen over the last 48 hours is just more chaos arising from Donald Trump's sudden announcement on Sunday on social media of this new initiative, what he's calling Project Freedom, which he couched in his initial announcement as a humanitarian effort to try and alleviate suffering on board tankers that are basically stuck, either waiting to sail through the Strait of Hormuz or sail up the Strait of Hormuz, but they're basically stuck at sea, they're running out of food on board, they're running out of water in many cases, and according to the president, increasingly unsanitary conditions are developing on some ships that pose, he says, a health threat to crews.And to be absolutely clear about the way he positioned this, he said that this was an effort to help tankers associated with countries that were uninvolved in the conflict, not American ones, not Iranian ones, tankers particularly from Middle Eastern countries and other parts of the world, that had simply found themselves in this very difficultposition and so the US Navy in some fashion was going to get them through the strait.

Well all of that caused a significant number of questions that the White House then scrambled to answer and within hours the White House was putting a clarification out saying the President did not mean to indicate that the United States Navy which is of course blockading the Strait of Hormuz, was going to start leading these ships through the Strait.This wasn't about breaking the blockade, this was about providing those ships that wanted to try and alleviate the humanitarian problems they're facing with guidance on how they themselves could successfully navigate the straight.Presumably, you know, getting on a radio and saying these are the point bearings that you need to follow if you want to avoid known risks.But it wasn't about anything other than that.Then, of course, yesterday...Go ahead.

No, no, you go ahead.Sorry.So then, of course, yesterday all hell broke loose because the Iranians smelt a rat and thought that this was all an effort by the United States to break the blockade.They claimed to have lobbed two missiles that they said had hit a US warship that then retreated.Central Command denied it, said that no US warship had been hit, although didn't say whether a US warship had been targeted and also didn't comment on claims that the Iranians had made that the warship had turned around and retreated.coming under attack and then suddenly we learnt that Central Command was announcing that they had successfully guided two ships through the Strait of Hormuz both of them US flagged which of course was not what a project freedom was supposed to be all about the Americans then said that they struck seven or eight Iranian fast boats that were in the water

I mean, so this idea that was first promulgated on social media by the president suddenly becomes the ignition point for a possible end to the ceasefire that, let me remind you, he himself has cited in letters to Congress where he has explained to lawmakers why he doesn't need to seek congressional authorization for his war because he claims, well the war's over, hostilities terminated on April the 7th when the ceasefire began.So this sort of blundering about has once again brought the Iran crisis to boiling point with every possibility after certainly one tanker, a UAE vessel, did get struck by Iranian fire yesterday that this tinderbox once again gets reignited.

Another esteemed correspondent that we have on the program is an ex -merchant Navy officer who now teaches maritime matters and creates online causes ash in Northampton and he kind of predicted a couple of the things that have happened and are happening up to and including the fact that the only people who can absolutely guarantee safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz will always be the people that put the mines there in the first place.He also alerted me to the plight of the sailors stuck on the ships who've been completely overlooked until you mentioned them a moment ago.And this has never happened before, but I'm possibly more confused when you finish talking than I was when you started talking.But there's a first time for everything.Hang on, hang on, hang on.Are they still there?

I mean, the ships that are supposedly the beneficiaries of the policy, because their plight is so terrible, they haven't moved an inch.

Well, not so far, other than the two US flagged vessels that were guided through the sea.

the original proposal.

Who were not part of the mission.No, I do understand it.

I take it all back.Holy moly.And does any of it matter?This is a question I ask you almost every time we talk.Is any of this resonating anywhere important or relevant or significant?

Well, I think it is. I think it matters on Capitol Hill.increasingly.I mean, with every passing day, we get 24 hours closer to the midterm elections.And with every passing day, Republican lawmakers who are up for re -election, or those in various parts of the country running for election for the first time, are getting increasingly antsy, not just about the direction of the war in Iran, but about the economic consequences of this.Donald Trump again yesterday breezily suggesting that petrol prices are going to drop, they're going to think like a stone as soon as this conflict is over.That runs entirely counter to testimony and classified briefings that Pentagon officials have provided to lawmakers who say that even if peace was agreed today, it would take up to six months fully to be certain that the Strait of Hormuz was cleared of mines.

So this is not going to be like a tap.You don't, you know, turn it off and everything suddenly returns to normal the moment you agree peace with Iran.And this government, the US government, appears to be almost uniquely unable to strike a peace agreement with the Iranians because of the nature of those people engaged from the American side in the negotiations.There's still no one from the American side that is steeped in the complexities of the nuclear issue.I mean, you've got Steve Whitkoff, the president's old real estate mucker, man he met in a deli at two o 'clock in the morning in New York and once bought a sandwich for and then they became firm mates.You've got Jared Kushner, the president's son -in -law, who spends half his time trying to gild his own lily by securing investment deals from the Saudis and other players in the region.

You've got Marco Rubio, maybe, maybe not involved, very unclear.He's briefing the press here later today.We might get a fresh sense of where things are going.They're all kind of, you know, they're sort of gentlemen amateurs in all of this.this.The Iranians have got years and years of experience of negotiating with Western powers over the very issue that Donald Trump says is his red line, the nuclear issue.

And it's far from clear the Americans have got anyone on their team able to match the specialisation that the Iranians can deliver in any talks that may or may now not be taking place.

All of which explains why it was greeted with such relief and joy when it was actually signed back in 2015 by members of a previous administration, something William Hague writes rather powerfully about in the Times today.On we go.You spotted this, I know you did, the Financial Times reporting on the tariffs, almost a continual theme, Simon.having precisely the opposite effect from the one that Donald Trump predicted they would have when he introduced them.

Yeah, I was really startled by this a few days ago.It was sort of tucked away in a corner of the Financial Times.But there are new numbers out about the UK's trading relationship with the United States.And if you remember last April, the Liberation Day tariffs, we were all very hurt by because we argued, and indeed the Trump administration accepted, that US -UK trade was basically in balance.We weren't running a massive trading deficit.We were sending them pretty much what they were sending us.

There was a bit of dispute around the edges, but we wereway ahead of many of the other countries that were being seriously penalised by the Trump administration.We then fast forwarded to the UK -US economic prosperity deal with Lord Mandelson smiling like a Cheshire cat in the Oval Office as Keir Starmer called on the phone to herald this as a major turning point in the relationship.If you actually look at the numbers since April of 2025, Liberation Day, through until February of 2026, suddenly there's a trading deficit.UK goods exports to the US averaged $4 .7 billion a month, down from their previous average of $5 .5 billion a month.So what Donald Trump has managed to do is actually create between the UK and the US, the very thing that his Liberation Day tariffs were designed to try and overcome, trading.

Of course, they could never overcome it, because if you're a tiny country like Swaziland, you're never going to be able to export as much to the United States as you buy from the United States.But if the goal of all of this was to eliminate trading deficits, Well, in the case of the UK, it's completely backfired because, as the FT reported, there are UK manufacturers that have just got so fed up with dealing with the unpredictability of the Trump administration, they've said, let's go to other markets.Let's sell to Hong Kong.Let's sell to Germany.Let's sell to India.Let's sell elsewhere.

So it's an astonishing own goal for the US economy and for US consumers.But it's also a problem for the UK, because it means we're selling less across the Atlantic to our major trading partner.Just another example of the chaos that Donald Trump has wrought here, but alsothere.