Three boys play in the shallow waters of the Strait of Hormuz, as a plume of smoke rises from an explosion in the background, off Bandar Abbas, Iran, Monday.
Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP
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Razieh Poudat/ISNA via AP
The U.S. military said it carried out more strikes on Iran on Monday, hours after President Trump announced he would reimpose a blockade against the country and start charging tolls for other countries’ ships to pass the Strait of Hormuz.
“At 4:45 p.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command began launching the third consecutive night of strikes against Iran, at the Commander in Chief’s direction,” CENTCOM said online. “These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.”
Earlier, Trump said the United States would not allow Iranian ships to move through the Strait of Hormuz. “We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE, so named because it is only stopping Iran’s ships or customers from entering or leaving,” he said in a post online.
CENTCOM said the blockade would begin on Tuesday at 4 p.m. ET. The U.S. military last worked to block maritime traffic to and from Iranian ports from April 13 to June 18.
Trump said other countries will be able to move through the waterway but the U.S. will charge a 20% toll on cargo as reimbursement for the U.S. doing “the job of providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the World.”
The U.S. will be known as “THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,” he wrote.
Until now, the U.S. had said there should not be any tolls or fees on shipping through the strait.
CENTCOM did not mention fees but said mariners approaching the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz should “contact U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16.” It said, “Additional information will be provided to commercial mariners through a formal notice.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, responded to Trump’s announcement saying he was correct to note that providing safe passage should be compensated. But he wrote on social media, “Iran has always been the GUARDIAN of the Strait and will remain so FOREVER.”
Araghchi then appeared to haggle with Trump: “20% is of course too much. We will be fair,” he wrote.
The comments came after the U.S. and Iran had exchanged fire for the third weekend in a row and into Monday, threatening a return to all-out war after a shaky ceasefire took effect in June.
Iranian leaders have been defiant that Iran controls the Strait of Hormuz, despite the Trump administration’s attempts to prove otherwise.
Renewed strikes
The latest round of attacks began on Saturday, when Iran fired at a commercial ship passing through the Strait of Hormuz and said it was closing the vital waterway completely.
Speaking Sunday to NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump rejected Iran’s claim that the strait was closed.
The U.S. retaliated, striking multiple sites in Iran overnight. Iran responded to those U.S. attacks on Sunday launching strikes in Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman. The United Arab Emirates also said it came under missile fire.
That prompted another round of U.S. strikes on Iran Sunday evening. Central Command said it hit “dozens of targets at multiple locations with precision munitions to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking international shipping flowing through the Strait of Hormuz.”
“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital maritime corridor for global trade. Iran does not control it,” CENTCOM said in a statement.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said in statements carried by state media on Monday that it targeted U.S. bases and outposts in Jordan, Bahrain and Kuwait with missiles and drones.
On Monday morning, missile alert sirens sounded in Bahrain, home to the U.S. Navy’s 5th Fleet. Kuwait’s army said its air defense systems were intercepting “hostile attacks.” There was no immediate word on damage.
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has condemned the escalation. “These attacks must all stop,” he said in a statement through his spokesperson on Sunday, warning that “a return to full-scale hostilities would have catastrophic consequences.”
Claims of breaching the deal
The U.S. has urged ships to use a southern route through the Strait of Hormuz that hugs the coast of Oman. Iran has said this violates the memorandum of understanding signed last month between Iran and the United States.
Iran’s Parliament speaker and negotiator with the U.S. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, posted an image of the preliminary deal on social media, highlighting a section of Point 5 that says “Iran will make arrangements.” He wrote: “The era of one-sided deals is OVER.”
The U.S. has also accused Iran of breaching the memorandum. And during the NATO summit last week, President Trump declared the ceasefire “over,” but didn’t rule out further talks.
The foreign minister of Qatar — a mediator in the conflict — had said ceasefire talks would continue after the multi-day funeral last week for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The ayatollah was killed in U.S.-Israeli airstrikes at the start of the war in late February.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told a news conference Monday that Iran was in touch with mediators including Oman, Qatar and Pakistan, saying their role was to de-escalate the situation.
But the status of negotiations with the U.S. was not clear.
Supreme leader issues address
After the late ayatollah’s burial in Iran, his son and successor, Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, issued an address. He did not appear on camera and his message was read by a news anchor on Iranian state television.
“We pledge to avenge the blood of the martyred leader and all the martyrs of these two wars from the criminal and disgraced killers,” the message said, referring to Iran’s war with Israel in June 2025 and the current war.
It was one of the few statements attributed to the new supreme leader.
Iranian officials said Khamenei was injured early in the war, but his status is unknown. He has not been seen publicly since he took power in March following the killing of his father.
Oil prices spike
The fight over the Strait of Hormuz — a critical shipping route for oil, liquefied natural gas and other goods — has caused disruptions to trade and energy supplies, pushing up fuel prices.
The international benchmark for oil climbed further after President Trump announced the renewed naval blockade, with Brent crude futures above $83 a barrel by Monday evening.
AAA says the average price of regular gas in the U.S. is now $3.87 a gallon — about 8 cents up from a week ago, but 21 cents lower than a month ago.
Kpler, a data and analytics company that tracks global commodity and shipping markets, said that crossings through the Strait of Hormuz have dropped by more than half from the previous week.
This is a developing story, which may be updated.
Hadeel Al-Shalchi reported from Istanbul. Emily Feng contributed from Scott Horsley and Alex Leff contributed to this story from Washington.
