US NAVY BLOCKADE STARTS TODAY — OIL HITS $104 — IRAN SAYS ANY WARSHIP IN HORMUZ WILL BE DESTROYED

At 10:00 this morning Eastern time, Monday, April 13th, 2026, the United States Navy began enforcing a blockade of all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports in the Strait of Hormuz.

Not a threat, not a warning, not another deadline.

An active naval blockade confirmed by US Central Command in an official statement enforced against vessels of all nations.

Oil immediately jumped 8% to $104 per barrel, and the IRGC responded within hours with a statement that any military vessel attempting to approach the Strait of Hormuz will be considered a ceasefire violation and will be dealt with harshly and decisively.

What you are watching today is not a continuation of the same war that began on February 28th.

You are watching its transformation into something qualitatively different.

The United States and Iran are no longer fighting over Iranian territory with air strikes and missiles.

They are now fighting over the world’s most critical waterway in real time with naval assets on both sides in a 21-mile-wide corridor that carries 20% of global oil and that Iran’s own military describes internally as a kill box for American ships.

To understand what today’s blockade actually means and why it is different from everything that has come before it, you have to understand the specific sequence of events that produced it over the past 48 hours.

The Islamabad talks lasted 21 hours across three rounds of negotiations beginning Saturday and ending in the early hours of Sunday.

Vice President Vance spoke to Trump at least six and possibly as many as 12 times during those 21 hours.

When Vance walked to the podium Sunday morning and gave his 4-minute press conference before immediately boarding Air Force Two, he left with what he described as a final and best offer on the table.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bakay said the talks failed over two or three key issues.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Arachi was less diplomatic.

He posted on Sunday that Iran had approached the negotiations in good faith to end the war, but encountered maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade.

That last word, blockade, was in Arachi’s post before the blockade was officially announced.

He knew it was coming.

He was telling his population what Trump was about to do before Trump did it, and then Trump did it.

The Truth Social post that launched the blockade is worth reading in full because it reveals exactly how Trump framed this moment to his own audience.

He wrote, “This is world extortion, and leaders of countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.

” He said Iran had promised to open the Strait of Hormuz and knowingly failed to do so.

He said Iran tried to extort the world by intimidating shipowners and laying mines.

He said, “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.

” He said the US Navy would seek and interdict every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran, adding, “No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.

” He said the US would begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the straits, and then he added the line that may define the next phase of this conflict, “Any Iranian who fires at us or at peaceful vessels will be blown to hell.

” CENTCOM’s official statement was more precise and more measured than Trump’s Truth Social post, but equally consequential.

The statement said US CENTCOM forces will begin implementing a blockade of all

maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports on April 13th at 10:00 a.m.

ET in accordance with the President’s proclamation.

It specified that 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.

And it specified the critical exception that makes this blockade strategically distinct from a full closure of the strait.

CENTCOM said it will not impede freedom of navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz to and from non-Iranian ports.

This distinction is enormously important.

The US is not closing the strait to all traffic.

The US is specifically targeting ships going to and from Iran.

The purpose is surgical.

Cut off Iran’s oil revenue.

Cut off Iran’s imports.

Destroy the financial mechanism Iran has built over six weeks of war.

Leave the rest of global shipping alone.

And interdict every ship that already paid Iran’s illegal toll.

That toll interception order puts Chinese and Indian ships directly in the crosshairs of the US Navy.

And this is where the blockade becomes a global crisis rather than a bilateral confrontation.

Iran, since late March, had allowed ships from five approved nations to transit the strait without being attacked.

Those nations were China, Russia, India, Iraq, and Pakistan.

Lloyd’s List Intelligence confirmed that at least two vessels transiting the strait had already paid Iran fees in Chinese yuan to guarantee safe passage.

China receives a third of its oil via the Strait of Hormuz.

If US warships start interdicting Chinese tankers that paid Iran tolls in the strait, the United States and China are no longer just in a trade war.

They are in a direct naval confrontation in the Persian Gulf.

Trump appeared to understand this when he told Fox News that any country assisting Iran would face a 50% tariff, describing it as a staggering amount.

He said he doubted China would help Iran, but US intelligence indicated China had such plans.

The ceasefire that Trump declared on April 7th was supposed to last two weeks.

The blockade he announced on April 12th could make April 22nd irrelevant if Iran fires on a US warship before then.

The military balance in the Strait of Hormuz is not the same military balance that existed on February 28th when this war began, but it is not as one-sided as American officials have suggested.

Yes, the US has destroyed 95% of Iran’s traditional navy.

Yes, Iran’s regular naval fleet, the ships, frigates, and corvettes that constitute conventional naval power, has been shattered.

But the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday, citing its own analysis, that more than 60% of the IRGC’s dedicated Hormuz naval fleet is still intact.

The IRGC does not fight with conventional warships.

It fights with a fleet of small speedboats and fast attack craft equipped with anti-ship missiles and the ability to deploy mines from small vessels that often evade satellite detection due to their size.

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis described the Strait of Hormuz as an Iranian kill box, meaning a geographic environment where the defender has overwhelming advantages over the attacker.

Mines in shallow water, anti-ship missiles fired from mobile coastal batteries, small boats operating in the narrow 2-mile shipping lanes, all of these create a layered defensive threat that even the most sophisticated naval force in the world cannot neutralize instantly.

Stavridis told CNN on Sunday, “This is a big task and it’s a big gamble.

” The US blockade force is built around the two aircraft carriers already in the region.

The USS Gerald R.

Ford and the USS Abraham Lincoln, each with their accompanying strike groups, including guided-missile destroyers, are the backbone of the enforcement mechanism.

The guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E.

Petersen and USS Michael Murphy were the first American warships to transit the Strait of Hormuz since the war began on February 28th, conducting mine-clearing operations on Saturday during the Islamabad talks.

CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper described their transit as the beginning of establishing a new passage through the strait that the US will share with the maritime industry to encourage the free flow of commerce.

A third carrier strike group and a Marine Expeditionary Unit aboard the USS Tripoli are on their way to the region.

Underwater drones are being used in mine-clearing operations, according to CENTCOM.

The UK is developing mine-sweeping capability for potential involvement with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Vessel RFA Lyme Bay preparing for a possible mine-hunting mothership role.

But here is the fundamental problem with the blockade that no amount of firepower resolves immediately.

According to one report, Iran lost track of some of the mines it planted in the Strait of Hormuz, meaning Iran itself cannot fully clear the waterway even if it wanted to.

The mines are there.

The specific location of every mine is not known even to the side that laid them.

Mine-clearing in a contested waterway under active threat requires specialized mine-sweeping vessels, remotely operated underwater vehicles, and systematic acoustic surveys of every square meter of the shipping lanes.

The two American destroyers that entered the strait on Saturday to begin this process represent the opening move of an operation that naval experts estimate takes weeks to complete under ideal conditions.

These are not ideal conditions.

These are conditions where the IRGC has vowed to open fire on any military vessel approaching the strait, and the IRGC still has 60% of its dedicated Hormuz naval fleet operational, armed with anti-ship missiles and the ability to deploy additional mines faster than American mine-sweepers can clear them.

Iran’s Parliament speaker, Galibaf, who led the Iranian delegation in Islamabad and returned to Tehran after the talks collapsed, responded to the blockade announcement with a gesture that was simultaneously menacing and politically calculated.

He posted on social media a photograph of gas prices at stations near the White House in Washington and wrote, “Enjoy the current price of gasoline.

With what is being called a blockade, you will soon miss $4 to $5 gasoline.

” This is not a random taunt.

Galabov is making a specific and mathematically accurate prediction.

Currently, with Iran’s blockade reducing Hormuz traffic by over 90% oil is at $104 per barrel.

US gas prices are already at over $4 per gallon nationally.

If the US blockade now also cuts off Iran’s own oil exports from the Strait, the 7 million barrels per day of crude that we’re still exiting the Gulf through Iranian channels will be removed from the market simultaneously.

Karen Young, senior scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, told CNN that adding a US blockade on top of Iran’s existing supply restriction means we still have the problem of a shortage of approximately 7 million barrels of crude and 4 million barrels of product not getting out.

She added that it could be a long time before oil prices go down, even after the war ends.

Galabov knows this.

His gas price map was not taunting Trump.

It was taunting the 47 million American drivers who fill their tanks every week and who vote in midterm elections in November.

Britain’s response to the blockade announcement removes what little allied support the US entered this moment with.

A UK government spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that the UK will not participate in the blockade.

The spokesperson said the UK continues to support freedom of navigation and that the Strait must not be subject to tolling, but crucially, the statement said the UK is urgently working with France and other partners to put together a wide coalition to protect freedom of navigation.

A senior NATO military official told CBS News that the UK is leading planning efforts of a coalition of more than 40 nations to reopen the Strait of Hormuz separately from the American blockade.

This is diplomatically extraordinary.

The United Kingdom, America’s closest military ally, is simultaneously refusing to join the US blockade and organizing a competing 40-nation coalition to address the same problem through a different mechanism.

Australia confirmed it received no request to participate.

21 NATO allies had previously rejected Trump’s calls to send naval help to secure the Strait, with Germany’s Defense Minister Pistorius saying explicitly, “This is not our war.

We have not started it.

” Trump said he wants everything from Iran, not 95%.

When asked before the Islamabad talks what his goals were, he said, “No nuclear weapon.

That is 99% of it.

” After the talks failed, those stated goals have now produced a naval blockade that starts today.

Mine-clearing operations under IRGC threat, oil at over $100, a 40-nation coalition the UK is organizing independently, China potentially facing US naval interdiction of its tankers, and a ceasefire that has 9 days left before it expires on April 22nd.

The IRGC said any military vessel approaching the Strait will be dealt with harshly.

Trump said any Iranian who fires will be blown to hell.

Galabov said, “If you fight, we will fight.

” Iran’s FM said the US showed maximalism, shifting goalposts, and blockade.

And the world’s most important 21 miles of water, the Strait that carries 20% of global energy, has both an Iranian blockade and an American blockade operating within it simultaneously as of 10:00 this morning.

This is not what either sides’ populations were told this war would look like 44 days ago.

Iran’s people were told their government would never yield to American military force.

America’s people were told the war would end quickly, that gas prices would come tumbling down, that the Strait of Hormuz would open naturally.

Neither of those outcomes is visible from where things stand this morning.

What is visible is two navies in the same narrow waterway, both with orders to use force if fired upon, and an oil price that just hit $104 because the market understands what happens when those two navies make contact.

Subscribe right now because what happens in the Strait of Hormuz in the next 24 hours will either produce the confrontation that restarts the full war or force both sides back to a negotiating table that Vance left less than 36 hours ago.

Tell us in the comments, with the US blockade live and the IRGC threatening to destroy every warship that enters the Strait, do you believe this ends in a deal or in the second phase of the most dangerous naval confrontation since the Cuban missile crisis?