TAMPA / MIDDLE EAST — U.S. Central Command said Saturday, Sept. 12, 2026, that American forces have redirected 100 commercial vessels over the past 60 days since the United States resumed its naval blockade of Iran, and that zero ships have passed through the blockade without U.S. authorization.

In a statement posted to X, CENTCOM wrote: “Over the past 60 days since America resumed the steel wall blockade against Iran, our forces have redirected 100 commercial vessels. ZERO ships have passed through the blockade without U.S. forces allowing. American service members remain laser focused on this mission.”

The figure is the clearest public accounting yet of how often U.S. forces are turning ships away while enforcing the blockade around Iranian ports and approaches — a mission Washington frames as protecting commerce and squeezing Tehran’s oil exports, and that Tehran brands as unlawful foreign intervention in a waterway coastal states should manage.

Reporting that tracked the statement, including Newsweek and Kurdistan 24, places the 60-day clock roughly in mid-July 2026, after a June U.S.–Iran memorandum on Hormuz transit collapsed and Iranian targeting of commercial shipping resumed. The same coverage notes Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has claimed no vessel can cross Hormuz without Tehran’s approval — a claim CENTCOM’s “zero unauthorized” line is designed to answer with operational counts, not rhetoric.

The disclosure lands on the same weekend energy markets are still pricing the war. Insanity Developing previously reported U.S. diesel at an all-time AAA high near $6 a gallon; Saturday AAA retail gasoline sat around $4.31 a gallon in secondary reporting. Strait of Hormuz traffic remains far below peacetime norms even as U.S. officials tout escorted flows. Concentrated naval power can keep a chokepoint “open” for authorized traffic and still leave households and truckers paying the insurance premium in diesel, freight, and groceries — a reminder that blockade arithmetic is never free.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry has separately argued that talks with Oman on transit corridors do not equal safety while a U.S. blockade continues, and that regional states — not outside powers — should guarantee Hormuz security. Reuters has reported no formal Hormuz shipping deal is expected from a Monday meeting in Oman. CENTCOM did not immediately expand the Saturday statement beyond the 100-ship and zero-unauthorized figures when asked by outlets covering the update.

Sources