The US’ military pressure on Iran at sea is widening, said Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who stressed Friday that Washington’s naval blockade of Iran had now “gone global”.
“This growing blockade has also gone global. Just this week, we seized two Iranian dark fleet ships in the Indo-Pacific region that had left Iranian ports before the blockade went into effect,” Hegseth said during a press briefing.
“They thought they’d made it out just in time. They did not. We seized their sanctioned ships, and we will seize more. Our blockade is growing and going global.”
Confirming the number of intercepted vessels prevented from exiting the Strait of Hormuz, Hegseth said the number had now risen to 34 and would likely rise further, as Washington is heavily tightening its restrictions around one of the world’s most critical shipping lanes.
The blockade, initially focused on Iranian ports and nearby waters, has now become more widespread, being applied to all ships remotely suspected of carrying sanctioned cargo, regardless of where they are intercepted.
Echoing President Donald Trump’s remarks of having “all the time in the world” to make a deal, Hegseth said that Washington was in no hurry to make a deal, a luxury which he said Tehran did not have and urged it to come to the table, stating that the Islamic Republic also knew that the path to ending the ongoing hostilities was at the negotiating table.
“Iran knows that they still have an open window to choose wisely. As we said previously, choose wisely at the negotiating table,” he said.
“All they have to do is abandon a nuclear weapon — and in meaningful and verifiable ways. Or instead, they can watch their regime’s fragile economic state collapse under the unrelenting pressure of American power. A blockade as long as it takes. Whatever President Trump decides.”
