A Maersk container ship, brimming with cargo, made its way out of the port near Hong Kong’s Kwai Tsing Container Terminals on March 19, 2026.
Cheng Xin | Getty Images News | Getty Images
On Thursday, the CEO of Maersk, a global leader in shipping, praised the U.S. Navy for its role in ensuring one of their commercial vessels safely navigated through the Strait of Hormuz. He described it as a “very well executed mission.”
Earlier this week, Maersk announced that the Alliance Fairfax, a U.S.-flagged ship operated by Farrell Lines, a subsidiary of Maersk Line Ltd. (MLL), successfully traversed the narrow passage of the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf on Monday, with U.S. military escort, without any incidents.
This achievement marks the ship as one of the few to have navigated the Strait of Hormuz safely since the onset of the conflict led by the U.S. and Israel against Iran, which began on February 28.
Vincent Clerc, Maersk’s CEO, explained that the company adopted a “very cautious approach” amid the Middle East crisis, choosing to avoid crossings, even as several of its vessels remained stranded in the area.
“In this case here, we were approached by the U.S. government and the U.S. Navy specifically saying that they wanted to take some ships out,” Clerc told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” on Thursday.
“We went through intense preparation together with them, looked at all the aspects of the mission and whether we could stand-in for the safety of the crew if we were sending the ship along in that operation,” he continued.
“So, a very well executed mission by the U.S. military. And thank God for that, because then it means that the ship is free, and the crew now can get back to doing the work that they want to do and are supposed to do — rather than be stuck in the Gulf,” Clerc said.
The mission came about as the U.S. military sought to deliver on President Donald Trump’s short-lived “Project Freedom,” an initiative designed to free ships that had been stranded by Iran’s closure of the strait, a narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
‘Project Freedom’
U.S. Central Command said via social media on Monday that two U.S.-flagged merchant vessels had successfully transited through the Strait of Hormuz, adding that U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers were operating in the region.
Trump subsequently called off “Project Freedom” on Tuesday, however, saying in a social media post that the movement of ships through the key maritime chokepoint would be paused to see whether the U.S. and Iran could agree to bring an end to the conflict.
Maersk’s CEO said the company still has eight ships trapped in the Persian Gulf, noting this is a small number relative to its size.
“But this is obviously a situation where eventually we’re going to need to find a solution for all of these ships,” Clerc said.
“Some of them are supposed to stay in the Gulf and work there to move cargo inside the Gulf, but for most of them, they are trapped, and we would like to be able to employ them outside the Gulf, rather than have them stuck there,” he added.
Maersk also reported underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) of $1.75 billion for the first three months of the year, in line with a consensus estimate compiled by LSEG. It marked a 35% decline from the same period a year earlier.
— CNBC’s Chloe Taylor contributed to this report.
