Trump: The U.S. to Blockade Hormuz Since Iran Controls Traffic, Charges Tolls
President Trump: The U.S. “Navy, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz.”
President Donald Trump on Sunday ordered a naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz after talks between the U.S. and Iran failed in Islamabad, Pakistan.
“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 wrote on Truth Social.
BREAKING: President Trump tells Maria Bartiromo that the U.S. will begin blocking ships in the Strait of Hormuz after Iran refused to give up its nuclear ambitions during lengthy negotiations.
"We didn't get there on the important issue. They want to have nuclear weapons.… pic.twitter.com/2BEVozJAvH
— Fox News (@FoxNews) April 12, 2026
The move is set to end Iran’s global energy blackmail, extorting money from countries that try to get their oil tankers through the narrow waterway. Around 20% of the world’s oil supplies passed through the Strait before the war.
“THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION,” President Trump wrote, “and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted. I have also instructed our Navy to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran.”
President Trump’s statement comes a day after the U.S. Navy launched an operation to clear the Hormuz Strait, as talks to end the conflict are underway in Pakistan. In late February, Iran laid mines in the Strait, threatening the global oil and gas supply.
The BBC reported Friday that Iran had proposed to “levy a fee in return for safe passage” of ships passing through the maritime chokepoint. The opening of the Strait was central to President Trump’s decision to allow a two-week ceasefire, ending a six-week-long military operation against Iran.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits,” he added. “Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL! Iran knows, better than anyone, how to END this situation which has already devastated their Country.”
"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." – President Donald J. Trump pic.twitter.com/JInBTLyu2s
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 12, 2026
Iran refused to abandon its nuclear program or open the Hormuz Strait in the weekend’s talks with Vice President JD Vance in Islamabad, ending hopes of a negotiated settlement.
In a separate post on Truth Social, President Trump noted that “Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions,” leading to the failure of the talks.
Recalling his long-held conviction on the issue, he added that “as I have always said, right from the beginning, and many years ago, IRAN WILL NEVER HAVE A NUCLEAR WEAPON!”
BREAKING: The U.S. Navy will begin the process of blockading "any and all ships" trying to enter or leave the Strait of Hormuz, Donald Trump has said
Live updates: https://t.co/De3uJX9nFd
📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/Mp8VzKAWpw
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 12, 2026
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Comments
We can’t spare this man. He fights!
Excellent quote by Lincoln!
The more I reflect on history the more I hate Lincoln and Grant. The other generals wouldn’t fight because they had honor and knew the civil war was a dumbass, optional, and unforced move by a low IQ leader that slaughtered tens of thousands of Americans.
Slavery ended everywhere else in the world without civil war. Most of that w/in 10 years of the US civil war.
Grant was a moron, the least honorable man of the era, (save for Lincoln) and on the wrong side of history. The fact a century of Americans have eaten up this as heroic and great is one of the greatest con jobs in the history of the world. I say a century because southerners up until WWI knew the truth.
This is like murdering half your family to while painting the house and declaring afterwards how heroic painting the house was and how righteous the kills were.
none of what I said applied to Iran BTW… I’m just sick of the white washing of Lincoln, Grant and the Civil War as something noble.
So far as Iran goes… the only thing smarter that Trump could do is to get the Iranians who will do the right thing… to kill the iranians doing the wrong thing.
Let the savages kill the other savages… and leave us out of it.
Your history is a little foggy there as to when slavery (never)ended. True, if the US had followed Britain in buying the freedom of slaves, then the war might have been avoided. Slavery…. by other names….stayed in the British Empire into the late 1840’s. Your condensation (condescension?) of the Civil War misses that it started out with the same shortcomings as WWI. Technology overran battle doctrine. Neither turned out as a quick war. With the bloodshed, the emphasis changed from saving the Union to ending slavery. McClellan marched and marched and just marched. Meade let Lee go. Once so far into the war, the only way out was total war. Lincoln wanted to let the South up easy…. that didn’t happen and we suffer for it now. Don’t blame Lincoln or Grant… blame Eli Whitney if you must.
“With the bloodshed, the emphasis changed from saving the Union to ending slavery.”
Unfortunately, that was a PR spin by “historians” that was worthy of Democrats.
There was ten thousand ways for Lincoln to have avoided civil war. He was a failed lawyer and a terrible leader who succumbed to a war mongering faction. As you said, it wasn’t really about slavery until after the fact. So in reality- Lincoln jumped in to murder half the country over much less noble motivations and slavery was used after the fact to punish the enemy. He who murders the other guy gets to write the history of how it was justified.
Even the French Revolution which was actually civil war and the most convoluted political mess ever had more justification than the US Civil War and it was just mob anger run amok.
Not one civil war to slavery in a thousand years EXCEPT in a war forced by Lincoln… and when I say 10 years… I mean 10 years AFTER Lincoln killed our own citizens. So Lincoln destroyed half the country… over what???? The force of violence because factions are unhappy with the political will of a geography. He was a worse leader than even Joe Biden.
So far as Lincoln going easy after the war….Oh- geeze Mr Lincoln… thanks for not wanting to commit freaking genocide on the starving survivors after destroying a civilization. Quite the saint.
History of when/where slavery ended in the civilized world. Nare a shot fired anywhere.
Haiti: 1804
Mexico: 1829.
British Empire 1833, effective 1834, with full emancipation by 1838
France (colonies like Martinique, Guadeloupe): 1848 (second abolition; first in 1794 during the Revolution but reinstated by Napoleon).
Netherlands (colonies like Suriname): 1863.
Cuba (Spanish colony): 1886.
Brazil: 1888
Argentina (1813), Chile (1823), Gran Colombia (1821), Peru/Venezuela (1854),
Denmark-Norway: 1803.
Spain: 1811 (with exceptions in colonies like Cuba).
Andy,
Regardless of provocations when the SC Militia opened up a bombardment of Ft Sumter April 12, 1861 there was really no turning back from a Civil War. Passions were too high, too much groundwork had been laid, too many people too eager for it, lot’s of them in the South. I say this a die hard from Alabama who grew up on romanticized notions of the War of Northern Aggression (which it mostly was).
My 2x Great Grandfather was part of Pickett’s Division. His Brigade went up Little Round Top with the 15th Alabama IN at Gettysburg and came close to winning the battle there…but Joshua Chamberlain earned his Medal of Honor that day leading the Union defense at the pivotal moment. So my 2X Great Grandfather Brigade got chewed up, needing to reorganize, was replaced by one of Longstreet’s Brigades for ‘Pickett’s Charge’ and my 2X Great Grandfather survived the war, came home, got married raised a family.
The South has risen again, and now everybody wants to live here. As far as emancipation is concerned, the reason didn’t matter as much as the fact that it was done.
@CC
Your statement of inevitability is true for everyone involved EXCEPT the one man sitting in the Oval Office.
Lincoln and Lincoln alone had the ability to not choose to enter into war- even after the initial shots.
Was keeping the Union intact a worthy goal? Maybe. But not at any cost. No. Just like keeping it together forever may not be either. Would you like to see half of your state killed to be ruled by California when/if things go that way?
If President Newsom’s historians are writing history, murdering half the country will surely be framed as noble as it was necessary for the good of the union. They’ve already painted half the country as worse than Hitler. Generations will venerate trans-rights as a life or death human right as a cover up to take back the wealth that has fled California. This not as absurd as the North’s justification for going to war.
Dumbest, most anti-Historical post I have ever read
There is this fad for regurgitating the lies of Lincoln’s enemies, the Lost Causers, the Kluxers, the Democrats that were spread during the war and after they murdered him as if they are real, as if they are true.
They are not. They were not true then, and they are not true now.
They are the product of taking each action and ascribing the worst possible motive to it– so long as it is something that can’t be verified one way or the other.
It is the same as those who, if Trump cured cancer, would scream about the medical jobs he’d eliminated.
By what measure to you assess a President?
American lives lost for an optional war seems like a biggie. Americans killing other Americans… well that’s a doozie. He was President. His job was anything BUT that. He failed. He failed miserably.
By what measure is Lincoln NOT the worst President ever?
If you want to hold all other Presidents to one standard and Lincoln to another, the go on ahead.. biggest con job in history.
I see. Iran was preventing ships from entering the straits and then changed their policy to allow only those paying a toll to enter. Now we are going to prevent ships from entering.
My head hurts. Make it stop. Aren’t we just doing Iran’s work minus the tolls?
No, we are presently depriving Iran of revenue and showing their “control” is a fiction. After assuring the passage way is safe, freedom of navigation through this international waterway will resume, minus Iranian piracy. It is a brilliant move strengthening our position and neutralizing Iran’s threat.
I thought that at first but believe that possibility Iran would camouflage ships
Iran gets no say on anything until they agree to peace on our terms.
If they pick up a sheet of toilet paper to wipe their ass, we should set it on fire. If the French lend them their white flag of surrender to use as toilet paper instead, we should light that on fire too.
Nah, we’re dispelling the illusion that Iran has ‘control’ of the Strait of Hormuz, that Iran can make a profit from extortion payments for safe passage or that Iran may seek diplomatic/economic gains/leverage.by granting/withholding access.
In fact the USA has long possessed the ability to restrict ingress and egress but until now the USA hasn’t chosen to exercise its dominion. Now Iran can’t use access to reward or punish. Now the incentives of every Nation which desire/require Iranian oil as well as the world oil market are aligned. Until Iran chooses to capitulate the Strait is closed. Iranian regime revenue stream severely diminished. Without sufficient funds paying the salary of regime enforcers much less all rest of their govt operations becomes tenuous, both of which increase internal pressure on the regime to complement the diplomatic pressure on the regime.
No, we are making it VERY CLEAR to China and Russia that giving Iran weapons in return for their ships having free passage isn’t going to fly anymore.
I’m unclear on how Iran still regulates the strait with enough influence it can charge tolls, or prohibit traffic when the US Navy is parked on Iran’s front yard.
I have it on good authority that their navy is sunk, their air force destroyed, their missiles depleted, munitions factories obliterated, and their leadership bombed to hades with only third stringers left to dodge death from above.
How can Iran still regulate the strait?
Land based rockets and drones.
and mines … which they lost track of… so I’m not sure what good paying the toll to the Iranians is.
That seems like an inadequate answer, but if true, we are indeed through the looking glass when a million dollars worth of swarming hardware and short range projectiles can stalemate the globe’s most lethal trillion dollar navy into having only tenuous control of a very important sea lane.
Well, countries like France were probably making back room offers to the moolahs to allow their boats through which kind of undermines the US efforts to get the straights opened.
So this pretty much f78ks over the Frogs because now their shipping will be treated like everyone else’s.
Of course if NATO was actually serious about their own energy security they’d have boats on the area helping to end Irans control of the straights but of course NATO isn’t there so now they can suffer the consequences of appeasement.
“Eurabia”
NATO is not only not there, it is now a meaningless joke. The US should not only withdraw from the UN, it should withdraw from NATO as well. If Western and Central Europe want to commit civilizational suicide, so be it. We don’t have to be a party to that crap.
Seems like only 1 French ships got through and no other EU vessel did
The actual answer is based entirely on how insurance works for cargo ships.
So long as Iran is threatening to attack ships passing through this Strait, no insurer will insure any ship to make this passage.
Without insurance, only a tiny few companies will risk it.
Iran’s ability to actually do anything is not relevant.
It is a waste of time to negotiate with Iran. Anything they say is just words blowing in the wind for they cannot be trusted.
Their lies-based culture and value system makes it impossible to negotiate with them or reach a meaningful deal.
Dead Iranian leaders reneg less.
Kinda. My own experience is that agreements can be successfully maintained but gotta be enforced from a position of strength with constant vigilance and willingness to make painful examples when a counter party tries to weasel out or unilaterally change the terms.
Ghengis Khan destroyed Persia because they murdered his peace / trade envoys twice, said pretty much they were insane 1400 years ago
Then 200 years later his successor wiped them out again.
Unfortunately they populate like rabbits
Don’t confuse today’s Muslim Iran with Persian Iran. These are two very different things.
Same people
They are Persians through and through
I should say Muslims
You were right the first time.
Listening to the melt down and hand-ringing of some international media is both amusing and convinces me that this blockade is exactly the right decision. Even Iran’s media allies recognize, probably at some level their biased creepy minds can’t consciously articulate, that it is basically game over for Iran.
Well, the media sure has an easy job.
“Last week Trump wanted the Strait open. This week he wants it shut.”
No, he still wants it open. Anyone capable of rubbing two or more living brain cells understands this.
Trump is only closing access to Iran’s ports, not to the strait. In the meantime, the navy is looking for mines.
Odd that you go out of the way to embarrass yourself with CNN level strategic thinking but that’s your choice.
Time to arm the citizens, give support and let them kill the IRGC down to squad level. Deport all IRGC families out of Iran to some other hell hole…. like Minneapolis or NYC.
I’m a numbers guy. Short version: Iran is losing $5 billion a month in foregone net oil revenues by not acceding to the U.S. demands. That’s 15% of their economy, not counting any other expenses.
There are a lot of very smart Iranians. Someone(s) there is(are) keeping track. Time is not on their side, and if they fire on the U.S. Navy then we will occupy Kharg island and its terminals, and the oil fields.
Frankly, I actually HOPE that they do battle with our navy, thereby giving us the excuse we need to invade. I don’t think this will last much longer.
If we occupy Kharg they will bombard it from the shore, and our people will be sitting ducks.
Iran’s GDP is $356.513 billion in 2025, or $29.7 billion/mo
– Direct GAAP net cost: $3.3 billion — 11% of GDP
– Add non-cash expense: $4 billion in reduced cash flow — 13% of GDP
– Add cost of sanctions: $5 billion in reduced cash flow — 17% of GDP
Again, these costs are ONLY the foregone net oil revenues. The non-cash expenses are amortized capital costs that are not directly incurred. Those familiar with financial accounting will understand.
That would be true if a) We occupied without any defenses, and b) Iran wants to destroy 13%-17% of its economy.
If we occupy it then the mullahs will already have lost that part of their economy, and won’t mind destroying it to keep it from us and from any government that would succeed them.
I can’t help but notice how many people are talking as if there is anything left that can be described as “leadership” in Iran. The people who are “negotiating” with us are literally in no position to make any kind of enforceable agreement, even if they were so inclined. Arm the opposition and let them work it out among themselves. This isn’t Iraq or Afghanistan, where we could pretend to install a “democratic” government. There was no such thing before the Shah was overthrown, and there won’t be now, because it’s incompatible with Islam. If we don’t like the winners, we can kill them. Again.
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