By SCM Foreign Desk
TEHRAN — Iran’s military command issued a sharp warning on Tuesday to foreign governments and international shipping companies, threatening to permanently bar their vessels from the Strait of Hormuz if they accept compensation drawn from seized Iranian assets held by the United States.
The ultimatum, delivered in a video address by Lt. Col. Ebrahim Zolfaqari, spokesman for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, sharply escalates tensions in the vital shipping corridor following weeks of military exchanges in the region.
“All companies and countries that welcome Trump’s proposal and use Iran’s frozen assets under this title, from now on, the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran will not allow any of their vessels to pass through the Strait of Hormuz,” Colonel Zolfaqari said.
The Iranian statement came days after President Donald Trump announced that the United States would seize frozen Iranian funds under its control to reimburse maritime operators whose cargo or ships were damaged during the conflict. Writing on social media, Mr. Trump stated that “any and all damages done to Ships, Cargo, or anything related thereto, will be paid for by Iranian Money that the United States has in its possession.”
A Direct Challenge to Global Shipping
By shifting the threat from military targets to commercial shipping firms, Tehran is attempting to create a financial and logistical wedge. Commercial operators now face a stark calculation: accept U.S.-brokered restitution for damaged vessels, or risk forfeiting access to the world’s most critical oil transit route.
The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Oman and Iran connecting the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, handles approximately 20 percent of global petroleum consumption and vast quantities of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Maritime insurance firms and international shipping bodies have already expressed anxiety over the precedent, warning that the retaliatory measure could leave shipping lines stranded between U.S. financial claims mechanisms and Iranian military interdiction.
The standoff follows weeks of heightened hostilities involving U.S. strikes against Iranian targets and retaliatory drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels in the Gulf. Iranian authorities have maintained that ships navigating the waterway must adhere strictly to Iranian-designated shipping lanes, claiming recent maritime incidents resulted from vessels taking unsafe alternative routes encouraged by U.S. naval presence.
Washington has held roughly tens of billions of dollars in Iranian state assets under foreign sanctions regimes, accumulated through years of restrictions on Iranian oil exports and central bank transactions. The Trump administration’s plan to unilaterally distribute these seized funds as reparations marks an aggressive shift in foreign asset enforcement.
U.S. officials condemned Iran’s threat as an unlawful act of maritime extortion. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking at a summit in Manila, warned against allowing any state to dictate conditions in international waters.
”If we create a precedent in the Middle East where a nation state can decide that they are going to control an international waterway… we have created a very dangerous precedent,” Mr. Rubio said.
With global energy markets closely tracking the developments, the Iranian military’s declaration threatens to drive up shipping insurance rates and disrupt supply lines just as global markets attempt to stabilize.
