The US Navy is working to clear, what President Donald Trump said, are Iranian mines from the Strait of Hormuz,  but Pentagon officials have privately told American lawmakers the operation could take up to six months, even with a tenuous ceasefire holding between Washington and Tehran in the weekslong war, news agency Associated Press reported. The waterway, through which roughly 20 per cent of the world’s oil typically passes, has seen its disruption increasingly threaten the global economy, with rising energy prices and wider economic effects posing a political risk for the Trump administration. In a classified briefing to the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Pentagon officials offered the six-month estimate, according to a person familiar with the situation who spoke to AP. Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to confirm the figure at a Pentagon news conference on Friday, but did not deny it.…