The US military is back to playing traffic cop in one of the world’s most important shipping lanes. US Central Command resumed enforcement of its naval blockade on Iranian ports on July 14, 2026, at 4 p.m. ET, and within the first 24 hours, six vessels had already been turned around or disabled.
What happened in the strait
USS John Finn and other naval assets are actively patrolling the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passes on any given day.
On July 15, 2026, the Curacao-flagged oil tanker M/T Belma was struck by Hellfire missiles after failing to comply with redirection orders. Reports indicate that five vessels were redirected while one, the Belma, was disabled.
This is not a new posture. CENTCOM ran a previous phase of blockade enforcement from April 13 to June 18, 2026, during which over 140 compliant vessels were redirected and nine non-compliant vessels were disabled. The current resumption suggests that whatever diplomatic window existed between June and mid-July has now closed.
