With US military set to blockade Iranian ports, Tehran says move ‘amounts to piracy’

CENTCOM says it will begin blocking all ships entering and exiting Iran’s ports, will not block Hormuz for ships using non-Iranian ports, in step down from Trump’s earlier threat

The US military said it would begin a blockade of all Iranian ports Monday, a day after US President Donald Trump declared that he had ordered the US Navy to do so due to the collapse of negotiations between Washington and Tehran in Pakistan.

Responding to the announcement, Iran said the move was illegal and “amounts to piracy,” and threatened a “forceful response” to any renewed military action amid a fragile 14-day ceasefire that was reached last week.

Trump had announced Sunday on social media that he ordered a blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz trading route that he has been demanding Tehran fully re-open, after his vice president, JD Vance, left negotiations with an Iranian delegation in Islamabad on Sunday.

The stall in talks dashed global hopes of a deal to permanently end the war that has killed thousands and thrown the global economy into turmoil since it began in late February.

As negotiating teams flew out, mediator Pakistan said it would keep facilitating their dialogue and has called on both sides to honor the fragile truce that experts said could be put at risk by any military maritime blockade.

“The blockade will be enforced impartially against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman,” US Central Command said in a statement, adding it would begin Monday afternoon.

US forces would not impede vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports, it added.

Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed the US military’s statement, a more limited operation than envisaged in his earlier post, which asserted all ships trying to enter or exit the strait would be blocked.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had warned before the US military announcement that they had full control of traffic through Hormuz and would trap any challenger “in a deadly vortex.”

In his lengthy social media post, Trump said on Sunday his goal was to clear the strait of mines and reopen it to all shipping, but that Iran must not be allowed to profit from controlling the waterway.

“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said. “Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”

Oil prices — which tumbled last week after the temporary ceasefire  — jumped around eight percent Monday, with both key WTI and Brent contracts topping $100 a barrel.

Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran’s delegation in Pakistan, said Tehran would “not bow to any threats” from Washington, while navy chief Shahram Irani called Trump’s blockade threat “ridiculous.”

After the highest-level US-Iran talks since the 1979 Islamic Revolution failed to deliver a deal, Iranian foreign ministry Abbas Araghchi blamed “maximalism, shifting goalposts, and (a) blockade” that prevented an agreement he said they were “just inches away from.”

Trump told reporters on Sunday he was ambivalent on the prospect of talks continuing with Iran.

“I don’t care if they come back or not. If they don’t come back, I’m fine,” he said.

Israel, which launched the military campaign against Iran jointly with the US six weeks ago, was not represented at the talks. Host Pakistan has no diplomatic ties with Israel and does not recognize its sovereignty.

The ceasefire declared by Trump on Tuesday night came with core declared goals of the war unfulfilled, including ensuring that Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, destroying its missile program, and creating the conditions for the Iranian public to overthrow the regime.

Iran: ‘NO PORT in the region will be safe’

Reacting to the US military’s announcement that it would begin the blockade, an Iranian Armed Forces spokesperson said on Monday that restricting vessels in international waters was illegal and “amounts to piracy.”

Iran would decisively implement a “permanent mechanism” to control the Strait of Hormuz, the spokesman added.

“Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for NO ONE,” the military said, according to the state broadcaster IRIB. “NO PORT in the region will be safe.”

A chorus of top-ranking Iranian officials also threatened retaliation.

Mohsen Rezaei, a military adviser and a former IRGC commander, wrote on X that the country’s armed forces had “major untouched levers” to counter a Hormuz blockade.

He said Iran would not be coerced by “tweets and imaginary plans.”

Ghalibaf addressed Trump in a statement on his return to Iran: “If you fight, we will fight.”

The IRGC later said the strait remained under Iran’s “full control” and was open for non-military vessels, but military ones would get a “forceful response,” two semi-official Iranian news agencies reported.

 ‘Final and best offer’

Tehran has already been restricting traffic through the strait — a key route which sees the transit of nearly 20 percent of global oil and gas shipments — while allowing some vessels serving friendly countries such as China to pass.

Nicole Grajewski, an assistant professor at Sciences Po’s Center for International Research in Paris, said a US blockade was “not a minor coercive signal” but could rather be considered an effective resumption of the war.

The US military said Saturday that two US Navy warships had transited the strait to begin clearing it of mines, a claim Tehran denied.

Iran’s Fars news agency reported Sunday that two Pakistan-flagged oil tankers bound for the strait had turned back.

But the strait was far from the only friction point jettisoning global efforts led by Pakistan to end the war, which began on when Israel and the US launched strikes on Iran, which retaliated by attacking Gulf and Israeli cities.

The US delegation in Islamabad — led by Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — was frustrated by Iran’s refusal to give up what it called its right to a nuclear program.

“I have always said, right from the beginning, and many years ago, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!” Trump later posted.

Vance told reporters in Islamabad that Washington had made Tehran its “final and best offer,” adding: “We’ll see if the Iranians accept it.”

Countering the US position, Tehran claimed Washington tanked the negotiations when they were within “inches” of an agreement, without providing evidence or specifying what the US positions were.

“We encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote on X.

Neither Iran nor the US has indicated what will happen after the ceasefire expires on April 22.