The U.S. military has fully implemented a blockade of Iranian ports, halting maritime trade in and out of the country within 36 hours, the commander of U.S. Central Command said on Wednesday.
Adm. Brad Cooper said U.S. forces “maintain maritime superiority in the Middle East” as part of the operation, which he said has stopped economic trade by sea that fuels about 90% of Iran’s economy.
The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that U.S. naval forces have intercepted eight oil tankers entering or leaving Iranian ports since the blockade began on Monday. In each case, crews were contacted by radio and instructed to reverse course, and no boarding was necessary, according to U.S. officials quoted in the report.
The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, headquartered in Bahrain, is leading the maritime operation across the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
In addition to the blockade, CENTCOM forces are clearing mines from the Strait of Hormuz, with the guided-missile destroyers USS Frank E. Peterson and USS Michael Murphy operating in the area.
A third U.S. aircraft carrier strike group and additional minesweepers are heading to the Middle East to help enforce the blockade and challenge Tehran’s grip on the Strait of Hormuz, the U.S. military news outlet Stars and Stripes reported on Tuesday, citing fleet-tracking data.
The pending arrival of roughly six more ships will bring to at least 27 the number of Navy vessels in the region—about 41% of all U.S. ships actively deployed worldwide—alongside more than 16,500 sailors and Marines already assigned there, the report said, adding that the beefed-up force is intended to give commanders more flexibility to tighten the blockade and increase economic pressure on Iran’s leadership to curb its nuclear program.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Donald Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the Iran war is “very close to over,” adding in an excerpt from the interview posted to her X account early Wednesday that “if I pulled up stakes right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild their country. And we’re not finished. We’ll see what happens. I think they want to make a deal very badly.”
Trump also told ABC News reporter Jonathan Karl that he is considering extending the two-week ceasefire announced by the president on April 7, but he doesn’t think it will be necessary.
“I think you’re going to be watching an amazing two days ahead. I really do,” Trump said, according to Karl in an X post on Wednesday morning.
Karl said that he asked the president if the war ends with a deal, or “do you just say, look, we knocked out their capability and that’s it?” Trump replied: “It could end either way, but I think a deal is preferable because then they can rebuild. They really do have a different regime now. No matter what, we took out the radicals. They’re gone, no longer with us.”
The president’s comments come amid reports that U.S. and Iranian negotiating teams could return to Islamabad as early as this weekend for a fresh round of talks, following the collapse last weekend of marathon high-level meetings between the two sides in Pakistan’s capital.
Jerusalem and Washington launched joint military operations against the Islamist regime ruling Iran on Feb. 28, hitting tens of thousands of targets, including Tehran’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs, before the truce took hold.
Washington has set out firm red lines in further talks with Tehran, including an end to all uranium enrichment, dismantling major enrichment facilities, recovering highly enriched material, fully reopening the Strait of Hormuz without tolls, securing a broader peace that covers regional allies and halting support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, according to two U.S. officials briefed on the negotiations and cited by the Journal.
The Trump administration has made clear that Iran’s enriched uranium is the “central issue” in the negotiations with the Islamic Republic, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who led the American negotiating team last weekend, called Netanyahu following the breakdown in the Islamabad talks and clarified “that the central issue on the agenda for President Trump and the U.S. is the removal of all enriched material, and ensuring there is no more enrichment in the coming years, and this could be for decades—no enrichment inside Iran,” the Israeli leader told reporters at a Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
“This is their focus, and of course, it is important to us as well,” said Netanyahu.
Joshua Marks is a news editor on the Jerusalem desk at JNS.org, where he covers Jewish affairs, the Middle East and global news.