{"id":326058,"date":"2026-04-14T06:40:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T06:40:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326058"},"modified":"2026-04-15T07:26:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T07:26:49","slug":"us-starts-naval-blockade-of-iranian-ports-after-deadline-passes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=326058","title":{"rendered":"US starts naval blockade of Iranian ports after deadline passes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Julien Borger \u2013 The Guardian April 14, 2026<\/strong><\/h1>\n

The US blockade of ships using Iranian ports in the Gulf has come into effect, turning the six-week-old conflict between the US-Israeli coalition and Iran<\/a> into a test of economic endurance.<\/p>\n

US Central Command (Centcom) made no formal announcement of the start of the blockade but had said it begin on Monday at 5.30pm Iranian time and would apply to any ships entering or departing Iranian ports or coastal areas, while ships using non-Iranian ports would not be impeded.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump claimed that 34 ships had passed through the strait of Hormuz, the gateway to the Gulf, on Sunday, but there was no supporting evidence for the claim. Speaking to reporters at the White House, the president also claimed: \u201cWe\u2019ve been called by the other side,\u201d who he said would \u201clike to make a deal very badly\u201d.<\/p>\n

Throughout the conflict, which began with a US-Israeli attack on 28 February, Trump has made frequent claims that Tehran had been in direct contact, desperate for an agreement, but the claims have never been substantiated.<\/p>\n

Iran warned that ordinary Americans would pay the cost for Donald Trump\u2019s latest move in the shape of higher petrol prices, and also vowed that if the US went back to bombing, the Tehran regime was ready to retaliate. For his part, Trump said any Iranian attack boats approaching the US flotilla in the region would be \u201cimmediately eliminated\u201d.<\/p>\n

It appeared on Monday that US naval forces were going to try to enforce the blockade east of the strait of Hormuz, in the Gulf of Oman, beyond easy Iranian missile and drone range. It remained unclear how Centcom intended to stop any oil tanker attempting to break the blockade. A missile attack could cause an environmental disaster, leaving open the possibility that US forces could seek to board and take control of any vessel not obeying US instructions.<\/p>\n

UK Maritime Trade Operations issued an advisory to seafarers to \u201cmaintain heightened situational awareness\u201d pending updates giving details on how they were expected to navigate through the new conditions in the region.<\/p>\n

Trump said any Iranian \u201cfast attack ships\u201d would be eliminated if they approached US vessels enforcing the blockade with \u201cthe same system of kill\u201d as the US has used to sink nearly 50 small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 168 people who it has claimed without evidence<\/a> were involved in narco-trafficking.<\/p>\n

Trump ordered the blockade following US-Iranian talks in Islamabad that ended after 21 hours without agreement.<\/p>\n

The tactic is aimed at strangling the heavily oil-dependent Iranian economy, and forcing Tehran to meet US demands to reopen the Hormuz strait to ships from the ports of Gulf allies, and to accept a complete ban on uranium enrichment.<\/p>\n

Continues \u2026\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Central Command (Centcom) has announced a blockade has come into effect for all ships entering or leaving Iranian ports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":191743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[58,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-326058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=326058"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":326059,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326058\/revisions\/326059"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/191743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=326058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=326058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=326058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}