The blockade is in effect. the United States Navy began
enforcing it at 10 in the morning Eastern Time on Monday,
April 13th. Iran's armed forces called it
piracy. Trump said Iranian ships
approaching the blockade will be eliminated.
Britain said it is not supporting the blockade.
France announced a peaceful multinational mission to restore
freedom of navigation. Nearly 20,000 Indian seafarers
are stranded in the Strait, running short of food, water and
medical supplies. Oil is near $100 per barrel.
And Trump said he was called today by the right people in
Iran. It is Tuesday, April 14th, 2026,
day 46 of Operation Epic Fury. The ceasefire technically
remains in place, barely. The blockade of Iranian ports is
active and being enforced, and the war that everyone thought
was winding down six days ago when Pakistan brokered a
ceasefire is, by most operational and legal measures,
escalating again. Seven days remain before the
ceasefire window closes, and the direction of travel on Monday
was not toward de escalation. This is episode 46 of Epic Fury,
the US Iran War podcast. Follow on Spotify and Apple
Podcast to stay with this story as it develops.
Let's get into it. Start with what the blockade
actually means in practice, because the precise language of
the CENTCOM announcement reveals a distinction that matters
enormously for how the next seven days unfold.
CENTCOM was specific. The blockade applies to all
maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports and
coastal areas, including all Iranian ports on the Arabian
Gulf and Gulf of Oman. It does not impede freedom of
navigation for vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz
to and from non Iranian destinations.
That distinction block Iranian ports, not the Strait itself,
for non Iranian traffic is the legal and operational
architecture that separates an American naval blockade from an
Iranian one. Iran has been blocking the
Strait to everyone it designates as hostile. the United States is
blocking access to Iranian ports specifically, while asserting
that non Iranian transit through the Strait continues under
International Maritime law. The practical effect, however,
converges a straight block to Iranian port.
Traffic on one side in mine and conditionally closed by Iran on
the other, is a straight that most shipping companies and
their insurers will not use. the US blockade does not require AUS
Navy ship to physically stop every vessel.
The announcement itself is sufficient to cause shipping
companies to divert or hold their vessels because the legal
and insurance exposure of entering A blockaded zone, even
one that notionally permits non Iranian transit, is simply too
large. Before the war, 100 to 120 ships
transited daily. As of Monday, the Straight
remained effectively closed to commercial oil tanker traffic.
Nearly 20,000 Indian seafarers are stranded on vessels in the
region running short of food, potable water and essential
medical supplies, according to the National Union of Seafarers
of India. Their general secretary wrote a
letter to India's National Shipping Board warning of acute
shortages and urging authorities to protect their welfare.
Those crew members have been at sea in a war zone for weeks.
They are not combats. They are workers, engineers,
deckhands, navigators, cooks largely from India, the
Philippines, Pakistan and a dozen other countries who signed
employment contracts for voyages that did not include being
trapped in an active military conflict zone.
For 46 days, the International Transport Workers Federation has
been pressing both governments to create a humanitarian
corridor that would allow food, water and medical supplies to
reach the stranded vessels. No such corridor exists as of
Tuesday morning. The vessels cannot leave because
the Strait is effectively closed.
They cannot be resupplied because the blockade applies to
maritime traffic. In the approaches and the
government's arguing about international law, nuclear
enrichment and Strait of Hormuz sovereignty are not the ones
going without food. The humanitarian dimension of
the Strait closure has been one of the least reported aspects of
this war, even though it touches more civilian lives than almost
any other single development. Before the war, roughly 20
million barrels of oil transited the straight daily.
The disruption to that flow has increased energy costs globally,
contributed to food price inflation in countries that
import fertilizers from Gulf producers, and disrupted supply
chains across South and Southeast Asia.
The stranded seafarers are the visible human face of that
disruption. They're caught between 2
blockades, 1 Iranian, one American that are arguing about
international law while these specific human beings run out of
food. Trump said Iranian attack ships
approaching the US blockade will be eliminated, he told
reporters. We can't let a country blackmail
or extort the world because that is what they are doing.
Vance, appearing on Fox News on Monday, framed the blockade as a
reciprocal measure. He said Iran had engaged in
economic terrorism against the entire world by threatening
ships in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the US is playing at
that same game. If the Iranians are going to
engage in economic terrorism, he said, we are going to abide by a
simple principle. No Iranian ships get out either.
Vance also said on Monday that the ball is entirely in Iran's
court on whether further direct talks happen.
Asked whether there would be more direct engagement, he said
it is a question best put to the Iranians.
That framing the ball is in their court is the American
position. After Islamabad, the US made its
final offer. Iran did not accept it and the
next move belongs to Tehran. The blockade is the pressure
that is supposed to make that next move happen faster and on
American terms. Former US Deputy National
Security Advisor Mark Feifel told Al Jazeera that the 21 hour
Islamabad session was a pressure test and a reset.
He said the blockade is not measured by ship stops alone but
by how fast the markets react, adding that the moment Trump
says no ships, he owns every ship and if he misses one, the
entire strategy could crack that observation.
The operational fragility of a blockade that claims total
enforcement is the military and political risk that Monday's
announcement created the alliance picture on Monday with
the clearest indication yet of how isolated Washington is in
this specific decision. Britain's Prime Minister Starmer
said his country is not supporting the blockade and that
all of the UK's diplomatic, political and capability efforts
are focused on getting the straight fully open as quickly
as possible to reduce global energy prices.
That is a direct and public repudiation of an American
military action by the United States closest ally.
Starmer's language was careful and pointed, he said, not
supporting rather than opposing, which preserves the bilateral
relationship while making the disagreement unmistakable.
Britain has U.S. forces on British bases throughout this
war. It has provided intelligence
support and overflight access, but it is not joining the
blockade. The distinction matters.
France's President Macron announced a peaceful
multinational mission aimed at restoring freedom of navigation
in the Strait of Hormuz and said he would convene a conference
with Britain in the coming days. The French, framing A
multinational mission for freedom of navigation, not a
blockade enforcement operation, is a European alternative to the
American approach, built around International Maritime law
rather than unilateral American naval power.
Whether that mission has any practical effect or whether it
is primarily A diplomatic signal that Europe is not aligned with
Washington on the blockade will become clearer when Macron holds
his conference. Germany urged Iran to respect
the ceasefire and allow ships to cross the straits safely.
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said blockading Iranian ports
does not serve the world's common interests and called on
the international community to intensify efforts to promote
peace talks. Wong held a phone call with
Pakistan's foreign minister, IS Shakhtar, urging the
preservation of the extremely fragile ceasefire.
Russia's Lavrov said Moscow remains ready to help find
solutions and said the ceasefire agreements apply to Lebanon,
taking the Iranian and Pakistani position against the American
and Israeli 1. A legal expert cited by Al
Jazeera argue that by establishing the blockade, the
United States is exercising A belligerent right under the laws
of war, effectively ending the ceasefire.
That legal assessment that the blockade is itself an act of war
that terminates the ceasefire is not one the Trump administration
accepts, but it is the framing that Iran, China, Russia and
most of the international legal community will apply. the United
Kingdom's Maritime Trade Operations Center issued a
notice on Monday saying that maritime access restrictions are
being enforced affecting Iranian ports and coastal areas,
including locations along the Arabian Gulf, Gulf of Oman and
the Arabian Sea east of the Strait of Hormuz.
That notice from the British Military Trade Organization, not
from a belligerent party, is the operational acknowledgement that
the blockade exists, published by a country that is
simultaneously saying it does not support it.
Iran's Foreign Minister Arachi warned against what he called
the dangerous consequences of provocative US actions in the
Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz for regional and global
peace and security. He issued that warning in a call
with his Russian counterpart, Lavrov, not in a public press
conference, which suggests Tehran is working the diplomatic
back channels rather than escalating publicly.
Iran's armed forces characterized the blockade as an
illegal act of piracy and said the security of its ports is
either for everyone or for no one.
The IRGC said the Straight remains under Iran's full
control and that military vessels approaching the straight
would receive a forceful response.
The Hezbollah chief, Naeem Kassem, rejected negotiations
between the Lebanese government and Israel set to begin Tuesday
in Washington, and called on Lebanon's president to refuse to
engage. The Lebanon thread continues to
pull against every diplomatic effort in every direction.
And yet Trump said on Monday that he was called today by the
right people in Iran. That cryptic statement,
delivered to reporters at the White House, is the most
interesting diplomatic signal of the entire day.
The right people, not the foreign ministry, not Arachi,
the right people. It is worth dwelling on that
phrase because in Iran's power structure, the right people is
not a casual designation. Iran's civilian government
Posseschian, Arachi. The foreign ministry has been
demonstrably excluded from military decision making
throughout this war. The IRGC has operated
autonomously. The Supreme National Security
Council chair by Posseschian, but dominated by hardliners and
military figures, has made the key decisions about the
ceasefire and the Islamabad talks.
Common A's office sits above all of them.
If Trump was called by someone in that chain of command this
NSC, the IRGC leadership or Common A's office directly, it
represents A qualitative shift in the back channel from the
Iraqi LED diplomatic track that Islamabad represented.
It also raises an obvious question, why is this call
happening the day the blockade went into effect?
The answer that presents itself is that the blockade is already
working as intended, not by physically stopping ships, but
by signaling to whoever in Iran controls the nuclear decision
that the economic cost of continued standoff is about to
accelerate sharply. The right people in Iran calling
Trump on the day the blockade starts is consistent with that
reading. Whether that call leads
somewhere or whether it is an exploratory contact that
produces nothing will be visible in the next 48 to 72 hours.
Trump did not elaborate, but the phone lines are apparently open
and at a level of seniority that the Islamabad talks did not
reach. The S&P 500 closed up more than
1% on Monday, erasing all of its losses since the war began on
February 28th. That market movement, stocks
rising on a day when a naval blockade took effect and oil
nearly hit $100 a barrel, seems paradoxical until you understand
what markets are pricing. Markets are not pricing the
current situation, they are pricing the expected resolution.
The S&P 500 is rising because investors believe Trump's call
from the right people in Iran combined with the blockades,
economic pressure is moving the situation toward a deal rather
than toward a return to bombing. That bet may be correct or
incorrect, but it is the bet the entire U.S. equity market made
on Monday, and it is a significant signal about where
sophisticated money thinks this is heading.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said oil prices will likely
continue rising until meaningful ship traffic gets through the
Strait, and that he anticipates this will occur sometime in the
next few weeks. He made those comments at the
Semaphore World Economy Summit in Washington on Monday,
speaking publicly about a timeline of weeks while the
blockade he serves an administration that just imposed
was taking effect at the same hour.
Oil is near $100 per barrel, up approximately 40% since the war
began on February 28th. Gas in the United States is now
averaging $4.13 per gallon, up $1.14 since the war's first day.
For the American consumer, that is a tax of roughly $20 per fill
up that has been running for 46 days for lower income households
that drive long distances to work and cannot absorb sustained
fuel price increases. The economic impact of this war
is not abstract. It is visible at every gas
station in the country. The political pressure on Trump
to resolve the Hormuz situation from working class voters who
care about what their commute costs is one of the few domestic
constraints on a president who has said he does not care
whether a deal happens. The S&P 500 closed up more than
1% on Monday, erasing all war losses.
But stocks and petrol prices are telling different stories about
the same war. Investors are betting on
resolution. Commuters are paying for the
conflict. Both sets of numbers matter.
The blockade adds a further layer of uncertainty to when
either number improves. It signals to the market that
the path to Hormuz reopening is now contingent on the nuclear
question and the blockades terms being resolved simultaneously.
Neither was resolved in Islamabad.
Both remain open. Turkey's Foreign Minister Hakan
Fidan told state-run Anadolu Agency on Monday that if the
parties make good progress, an additional ceasefire extension
of 45 to 60 days could be introduced to allow negotiations
to continue. He warned that Israel remains a
factor that could disrupt negotiations and that uranium
enrichment would be a sticking point, but expressed hope that
with the support of mediators in other countries, these obstacles
could be overcome. That statement, a potential 45
to 60 day extension, is the most specific diplomatic proposal to
emerge in the hours since Islamabad, and it comes from a
country that was part of the Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey
ceasefire initiative that Iran rejected before the talks.
Turkey's continued engagement as a potential mediator alongside
Pakistan and Egypt is one of the few remaining institutional
pillars on which a ceasefire extension could be built.
Turkey's foreign minister Fidden described uranium enrichment as
a potential sticking point, but expressed hope that mediators
could help both sides overcome it.
His statement, careful, constructive, not ruling out
progress, is the tone of a country that's trying to keep
the diplomatic space open while the United States and Iran
escalate their mutual economic pressure campaigns.
The cease-fire expires on April 22nd. 7 days remain.
The blockade is active. The phone call from the right
people in Iran is unexplained but suggestive.
The S&P 500 closed up more than 1%, erasing all war losses.
Markets betting on resolution, not escalation.
The UK and France are not supporting the blockade and are
building a rival multinational framework.
China is urging calm and working the Pakistan channel.
Pakistan's is Shakdar is still in the room and still urging
both sides to uphold their ceasefire commitment.
Turkey is floating a 45 to 60 day extension if progress is
made and nearly 20,000 seafarers are running short of food in the
straight between two blockades that each call the other
illegal. The seven days between now and
April 22nd are the most consequential diplomatic window
of this entire conflict. The war produced no decisive
political outcome. The ceasefire produced no deal.
Islamabad produced no agreement. The blockade has produced a
phone call from the right people.
Whether that phone call produces anything is what the next seven
days will determine. Seven days is not much time to
bridge 47 years of deep hostility, a nuclear dispute,
Hormuz dispute, a Lebanon dispute, A proxy network dispute
and the sanctions architecture that goes back to 1979.
But seven days is what is left and the right people have
apparently started talking. The UN secretary general Antonio
Guterres call for talks between the US and Iran to continue and
urged all parties to uphold the ceasefire.
UN calls for dialogue are a standard diplomatic response to
escalation and rarely produce immediate results.
But the consistent pressure from the United Nations, from the
Pope, from European governments, from Turkey, and from Pakistan
to maintain the ceasefire and extend the negotiating window is
a measure of the depth of international concern about what
happens on April 22nd if no extension is agreed.
The Israeli Lebanese direct talks in Washington scheduled
for Tuesday represent the one diplomatic thread moving in the
right direction. On Day 46, for the first time in
decades, Israeli and Lebanese ambassadors will sit across a
table in Washington. Netanyahu said he wants what he
described as a real peace agreement with Lebanon that will
last for generations. Hezbollah's chief, Naeem Qasim,
rejected the talks and told Lebanon's president not to
engage. Whether Lebanon's government
proceeds over Hezbollah's objection is a test of the
Lebanese state's independence from the group that has
dominated its security landscape for four decades.
If Israel and Lebanon make even preliminary progress on Tuesday,
it removes one of Iran's primary justifications for not reopening
the Strait. The argument that the ceasefire
must cover Lebanon before Hormuz can open.
Progress in Washington on Lebanon could therefore create
movement on Hormuz that the Islamabad talks could not.
Everything is connected. Lebanon connects to Hormuz.
Hormuz connects to the blockade. The blockade connects to the
phone call from the right people.
The phone call connects to whether Iran responds to the
written final offer. The written final offer connects
to whether the ceasefire is extended or expires on April
22nd and April 22nd connects to everything that comes after it,
deal, extension or war. If this podcast is helping you
make sense of what is happening, please take 30 seconds to leave
a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
It makes an enormous difference to how many people find a shell.
This has been episode 46 of Epic Fury, the US Iran war podcast.
Day 46. The blockade is live.
The ceasefire technically holds. The UK and France will not join
the blockade. China and Russia are urging
calm. Pakistan is still mediating.
Turkey is floating a ceasefire ext 20,000.
Seafarers are running short. Food oil is near $100 a barrel.
The S&P 500 erased all war losses and Trump said he was
called today by the right people in Iran.
Seven days left on the clock. We will be back very soon.