US Centcom Says 78 Vessels Redirected Under Iran Blockade

US Central Command said Saturday that 78 commercial vessels have been redirected and four disabled since the start of the Trump administration’s blockade on shipping to and from Iran through the Strait of Hormuz.

“As of May 16, 78 commercial ships have been redirected, and 4 have been disabled to ensure compliance,” CENTCOM said in a post on X, first reported by Middle East Eye. The disclosure is the first running tally the command has published since enforcement operations began earlier in the current cycle, and it puts a hard number on what had until now been described only in general terms by the Pentagon.

CENTCOM did not break down the 78 redirected ships by flag, cargo or destination, and it did not say how the four disabled vessels were taken out of service or where they are now. The post also did not address whether any crew members were detained or injured.

What the numbers describe

The 78-and-four figure covers the full period of the blockade, which the administration has framed as a sanctions-enforcement action rather than a declared act of war. Ships heading to or from Iranian ports — chiefly the Kharg Island crude terminal and the Bandar Abbas container hub — are being warned off, boarded or, in a small number of cases, physically disabled.

The blockade sits inside the larger Hormuz crisis that has been building since Iran floated tolls on transiting tankers and President Trump warned Tehran it would have “a very bad time” if it tried to collect them. Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil moves through the 21-mile-wide chokepoint, and any sustained interference there feeds directly into global crude prices.

Tehran’s response

Iran is treating the CENTCOM tally as evidence the strait has ceased to function as international water. Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref said this weekend that Tehran would no longer regard Hormuz as international waters absent reciprocity from the United States, asserting Iranian sovereignty over shipping through the strait.

That language matters. Iran has long claimed the right to inspect traffic in its territorial waters, but it has generally observed the transit-passage regime that allows free movement through international straits. Aref’s framing — sovereignty, not transit — is the rhetorical scaffolding for the toll plan and for any future Iranian interdiction of US-flagged or US-allied shipping.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has separately warned that a prolonged confrontation in the Gulf will impose economic costs the United States is underestimating.

Moscow and Beijing line up

Russia’s permanent representative to international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, said Moscow backs China’s position on the Hormuz dispute. Beijing has called for the strait to remain open to all commercial traffic and has resisted Western efforts to route a UN Security Council resolution endorsing the blockade.

The Russian-Chinese alignment narrows the diplomatic ground the administration can work in New York and gives Tehran cover to push back on any Council action.

A single tanker, and a signal

The pressure inside the enforcement system is already visible in individual cases. Bloomberg reported that a very large crude carrier resumed its voyage this week after being detained by the US Navy as part of the Hormuz operation. The episode, which involved a vessel measured in the millions of barrels of capacity, underlines how a single boarding can lock up a significant slice of daily seaborne crude until paperwork and ownership questions are sorted out.

That is the mechanism markets are now pricing. Crude has been climbing through the week as the US exemption on Russian oil expired and traders absorbed the prospect of more Hormuz friction on top of tighter Russian supply.

What to watch

Three things will tell us whether the blockade tightens or holds at current intensity.

First, the rate of change in CENTCOM’s tally. Seventy-eight redirected vessels over the life of the operation is one signal; 78 in a week would be another. The command has not yet committed to a regular reporting cadence.

Second, whether Iran begins charging tolls or attempting boardings of its own. Aref’s sovereignty claim and the toll plan are the predicate for that step. President Trump’s previous statements on the strait suggest the US response would be immediate.

Third, the posture of the Ford carrier strike group, which received a Presidential Unit Citation this week for its role in the campaign. The strike group’s movements in and around the Gulf of Oman are the clearest physical indicator of how seriously CENTCOM is taking the next phase.

For now, the number to keep in mind is 78 — and the four that did not get the chance to turn around.