The Strait of Hormuz is bracing for a fresh showdown as Iran’s Revolutionary Guard openly mocks President Trump’s new tanker‑escort plan, daring the US Navy to “show up and be shattered” in the same waters where the reflagged tanker Bridgeton struck an Iranian mine in 1987.

In a fiery televised speech from Bandar Abbas, an IRGC admiral stood before fast‑attack boats and anti‑ship missiles, waving a blown‑out section of rusted steel said to be from the Bridgeton’s hull. “They brought their flag then and we sent it home in shame,” he declared. “Let Trump send his warships now. The seabed remembers.”

Washington has quietly ordered destroyers, minesweepers and surveillance aircraft toward Hormuz to assemble a new “freedom of navigation” convoy, but Pentagon planners admit the optics are brutal: every escort the US adds risks replaying the very humiliation Tehran is invoking. Defence analysts warn that modern Iranian mines, drones and cruise missiles make today’s strait far deadlier than in 1987.

Gulf monarchies, desperate to keep oil flowing yet terrified of becoming minefields, are watching with rising dread. European governments, already scarred by energy shocks, are asking if Trump’s high‑profile armada is deterrence—or bait for an IRGC strike designed to produce a new Bridgeton moment, this time with a US hull in flames.

As tankers creep along the coast and cameras track every move in the narrow waterway, one misstep could turn a propaganda dare into the defining disaster of Trump’s Hormuz gamble.