Another amphibious assault ships joins US naval buildup amid Iran talks

A second amphibious ready group joined U.S. Navy forces in the Middle East this week as President Donald Trump weighs military options amid uncertain peace talks with Iran.

The amphibious assault ship USS Boxer and the amphibious transport dock ship USS Portland, with the embarked 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, were transiting the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, U.S. Central Command said in an X post.

The transport dock ship USS Comstock, part of the Boxer ARG, has been in the Middle East since early May, CENTCOM noted.

The Tripoli Amphibious Ready Group, including the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, is operating in the Arabian Sea, according to the U.S. Naval Institute News fleet tracker published Monday.

Boxer’s arrival puts at least 24 Navy warships — including the aircraft carriers USS Abraham Lincoln and USS George H.W. Bush and 15 destroyers — in the Middle East, according to USNI News.

Wasp-class amphibious assault ship USS Boxer transits the Indian Ocean on June 24, 2026. Boxer, flagship of the Boxer Amphibious Ready Group, arrived in the Middle East on Tuesday amid tenuous peace talks between the U.S. and Iran. (Daniel Gaither/U.S. Navy)

That number excludes oilers, supply ships and other support vessels as well as two destroyers positioned in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

In all, slightly less than half of the Navy’s battle force ships currently deployed and operating at sea worldwide are in the Middle East, according to USNI News data. That figure excludes ships on local operations.

Additionally, about 50,000 U.S. service members are operating in the Middle East, CENTCOM said Monday.

Those forces remain in place as U.S.-Iran negotiations to end the war, dismantle the Iranian nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz continued this week in Qatar.

U.S. negotiators arrived Tuesday in the Qatari capital of Doha for indirect talks with Iran, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The meeting followed a series of Iranian attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz and U.S. military installations in the Middle East over the weekend. Those attacks were answered by U.S. strikes against Iranian military sites in and around the strait.

Though the exchange of fire threatened to upend a 60-day ceasefire agreement reached in June, both sides recently agreed to end hostilities.

Earlier this week, Trump threatened that if Tehran could not be reasonable, the U.S. would be forced to “militarily complete the job that we very successfully started.”

“If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!” Trump said Sunday on Truth Social, repeating a threat he has made repeatedly in recent months.

Trump has kept diplomacy as his primary option in dealing with Iran but has not completely ruled out returning to armed conflict if talks fail, according to the WSJ report.

The Strait of Hormuz remains a key sticking point in those negotiations, with Iran insisting it has the right to charge tolls for ships transiting the strategic waterway. Before the Feb. 28 start of the war, it carried 20% of the world’s daily petroleum consumption.

The U.S. maintains that traveling through the strait should be free, as it was previously. That stance may be challenged by an Iranian-Omani plan to charge fees for transiting the strait.

Oman says the fees would be voluntary but Iranian officials have said they are obligatory, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

On Thursday, the multinational Joint Maritime Information Center said traffic in the strait remained steady, with some 46 vessels transiting the waterway on Sunday and Monday facilitated by the U.S.

An additional 43 ships also went through the strait during those same two days, according to the report. The historical average is 138 vessels per day, the center noted.

The report also noted that the security threat level for the strait had been raised to substantial.

Overall risk remains lower than it was before the memorandum of understanding between the U.S. and Iran was signed, but “Iranian intent and capability to conduct intentional disruption or attack persist,” it said.