• Oil price hovers around $100 per barrel
•Trump says he won’t apologise to Pope after altercation
•Vessels breaching blockade face capture, says US military
Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja
U.S. President Donald Trump said yesterday that the American military had begun a blockade of Iranian ports as part of his effort to force Tehran to open the Strait of Hormuz and accept a deal to end the war that has raged for more than six weeks.
Iran responded with threats on all ports in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, taking aim at U.S.-allied countries.
The situation set the stage for an extraordinary showdown that posed serious risks for the global economy and raised the specter that the ceasefire could collapse and the war could resume. Talks aimed at permanently ending the conflict which began February 28 with U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran failed to reach an agreement this past weekend. There has been no word on whether negotiations will resume.
In Washington, Trump said the blockade started at 10 a.m. EDT (2 p.m. GMT). “We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world because that’s what they’re doing,” Trump said of Iran, quoted by the Associated Press (AP).
Speaking outside the Oval Office, Trump suggested the U.S. is still willing to engage with Iran.
“I can tell you that we’ve been called by the other side,” Trump said. He added: “We’ve been called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal.”
A notice to mariners by the U.K. Maritime Trade Operations agency said the blockade restricted “the entirety of the Iranian coastline, including ports and energy infrastructure.”
It said transit through the strait “to or from non-Iranian destinations is not reported to be impeded,” though ships “may encounter military presence.”
At least two tankers approaching the strait Monday turned around soon after the U.S. blockade began, vessel tracker MarineTraffic said in a post on X.
Iran’s effective closure of the strait, through which 20 per cent of traded oil passes in peacetime, has sent oil prices skyrocketing, pushing up the cost of petrol, food and other basic goods far beyond the Middle East. Tehran has allowed some ships perceived as friendly to pass while charging considerable fees, leading to accusations it is holding the global economy hostage.
Some analysts are doubtful that the U.S. can restore normal shipping through force alone — and it’s not clear how a blockade would work or what the dangers might be to U.S. forces, the AP report said.
The U.S. military’s Central Command announced that the blockade would be enforced “against vessels of all nations entering or departing Iranian ports and coastal areas.” It said that would include all of Iran’s ports on the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
CENTCOM’s decision to allow ships traveling between non-Iranian ports to transit the strait was a step down from Trump’s earlier threat to blockade the waterway.
In a social media message posted shortly after the blockade was due to begin, Trump said Iran’s navy was “laying at the bottom of the sea, completely obliterated,” but he added that Tehran still has “fast attack ships,” and warned that “if any of these ships come anywhere close to our blockade, they will be immediately eliminated.”
Iran Issues Threats
“Security in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman is either for everyone or for no one,” the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting reported Monday. “No Port in the region will be safe,” read a statement from the Iranian military and the Revolutionary Guard.
The threats halted the limited ship traffic that resumed in the strait since the ceasefire, according to a report from Lloyd’s List Intelligence. Marine trackers say over 40 commercial ships have crossed since the start of the ceasefire last week, down from roughly 100 to 135 vessel passages per day before the war.
The blockade is likely intended to pile pressure on Iran, which has exported millions of barrels of oil since the war began, much of it likely carried by so-called dark transits that evade Western sanctions and oversight.
Ebrahim Rezaei, a spokesperson for the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, dismissed U.S. warnings of a potential blockade as “more bluffing than reality,” while warning that Tehran was prepared to respond if the situation escalated militarily.
“It will make the current situation (Trump) more complicated and make the market — which he is angry about — more turbulent. And we may also reveal other cards that we have not used in the game,” he said in a post on X.
The Iranian Parliament Speaker, Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, addressed Trump in a statement: “If you fight, we will fight.”
But the effects will be felt far beyond Iran. The price of Brent crude oil, the international standard, hovered Monday just under $100 per barrel. It cost roughly $70 per barrel before the war.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said that, together with French President Emmanuel Macron, he would hold a summit this week “to drive forward the international effort” to end the conflict and unblock the strait.
On X, Macron said the conference will draw together nations prepared to contribute to a “peaceful multinational mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation in the strait.” He stressed that the mission would be “strictly defensive” and “separate from the warring parties to the conflict.”
The blockade threat came after the U.S. marathon.-Iran ceasefire talks in Pakistan ended without an agreement on Saturday. U.S. Vice President JD Vance said the talks stalled after Iran refused to accept American terms on refraining from developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran has insisted its nuclear program is peaceful. However, it has pushed forward with steps that could give it the ability to build a nuclear weapon, including enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels and developing long-range missiles potentially capable of delivering a bomb.
Trump Says He Won’t Apologise to Pope Leo
Trump refused to apologise to Pope Leo XIV on Monday after criticising the pontiff for his opposition to the war in Iran — and he sought to explain away a now-deleted social media post depicting himself as Jesus by saying he had thought the image was of him as a doctor.
Trump was asked about his comments toward the U.S.-born head of the Catholic Church, as well as the post depicting himself as a healer, in a hastily called question-and-answer session with reporters at the White House.
“He was very much against what I’m doing with regard to Iran, and you cannot have a nuclear Iran. Pope Leo would not be happy with the end result,” Trump said, adding, “I think he’s very weak on crime and other things so I’m not” going to apologise.
“He went public,” the Republican president added. “I’m just responding to Pope Leo.”
That response followed Leo pushing back on Trump’s broadside against him the previous evening, telling reporters that the Vatican’s appeals for peace and reconciliation are rooted in the Gospel and that he doesn’t fear the Trump administration.
Many US Catholics said they were dismayed by Trump’s unprecedented broadside at the first American pope.
“To put my message on the same plane as what the president has attempted to do here, I think is not understanding what the message of the Gospel is,” Leo told The Associated Press aboard the papal plane en route to Algeria. “And I’m sorry to hear that, but I will continue on what I believe is the mission of the church in the world today.”
The back-and-forth between the world’s two most influential Americans served to deepen a burgeoning schism as the U.S. war in Iran stretched into its seventh week.
History’s first U.S.-born pope stressed that he was not making a direct attack against Trump or anyone else with his general appeal for peace and criticisms of the Iran war and other conflicts around the world.
“I’m not afraid of the Trump administration or of speaking out loudly about the message of the Gospel, which is what the Church works for,” said Leo, who said he had a different perspective on foreign policy than elected officials.
“I will continue to speak out strongly against war, seeking to promote peace, promoting dialogue and multilateralism among states to find solutions to problems,” he said.
The president criticised the pope in a lengthy social media post while flying back to Washington from Florida on Sunday night. He kept up the denunciation after deplaning, telling reporters, “I’m not a fan of Pope Leo.”
No Nation Has Right to Block Strait of Hormuz, Says UN Maritime Chief
The head of the organisation responsible for the safety and security of global shipping has said no country has the legal right to blockade the Strait of Hormuz.
Arsenio Dominguez, Secretary-General of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), said whilst the US blockade “appeared to be very specific to accessing Iranian ports”, legally speaking there was no basis for any country to block the waterway.
“In accordance with International Law, countries don’t have the right to blockade an international strait that is used for international navigation,” he told journalists in a briefing at the IMO headquarters in London this afternoon.
Dominguez also said that even though very few ships were making it through the Strait before the blockade, the latest ‘blockage’ by the US “doesn’t provide any solutions to the crisis we have”.
“20,000 seafarers can’t transit. The global economy continues to be affected, and that until the root causes are addressed, we are all still suffering from it,” he said.
“The additional blockade doesn’t help in finding a solution to the conflict.” He added: “I would ask everyone to play by the rules.”
American Forces: Vessels Breaching US Blockade Face ‘Capture’
American forces will “capture” ships that violate its blockade in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, the US military said yesterday.
A note sent from US Central Command to seafarers said: “Any vessel entering or departing the blockaded area without authorisation is subject to interception, diversion, and capture.”
The note added the operation would “not impede neutral transit passage through the Strait of Hormuz to or from non-Iranian destinations”, according to the Reuters news agency.
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