US Claims Control of Strait of Hormuz as Iran Declares the Waterway Closed

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declared this week that the United States, not Iran, controls the Strait of Hormuz — even as Tehran moved to shut the waterway to all shipping.

Hegseth made the claim on Wednesday outside U.S. Central Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida. He told reporters that American forces had kept commercial traffic and oil flowing through the strait despite Iranian resistance. “The United States of America controls the Strait of Hormuz,” he said. “We’re able to move oil in and out and other things with partners and have done so now for weeks and weeks in ways the Iranians don’t want to acknowledge.”

He put the volume protected by the U.S. at more than 100 million barrels of oil. President Donald Trump offered the same figure on Truth Social and added that over 200 commercial ships had passed through safely. “This wildly successful effort is because the UNITED STATES of AMERICA CONTROLS the Strait of Hormuz — NOT Iran,” Trump wrote.

Hegseth described the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports as “ironclad.” He said it had stopped almost 140 ships trying to move in or out of those ports, and that another tanker had been disabled the day before. That vessel was the Palau-flagged M/T Settebello, struck by precision munitions in its engine room after its crew ignored repeated instructions, according to news agency IANS. The strike has since drawn a formal protest from India, which has reported casualties among the tanker’s Indian crew.

Tehran tells a very different story. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) declared the strait “closed to all vessels, including oil tankers and commercial ships,” in a statement on its Telegram channel, CNN reported. Any ship that attempts the passage, the IRGC warned, “will be targeted.”

The dueling claims landed amid a fresh round of fighting. CENTCOM said its forces launched another wave of self-defence strikes on multiple targets in Iran at 5:15 p.m. ET, at Trump’s direction. Iranian media reported explosions in Bandar Abbas, Sirik, Qeshm Island and other areas near the strait. The IRGC Navy said it had struck two vessels attempting to transit Hormuz.

Roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil normally passes through the narrow channel between Iran and Oman, making it one of the most important chokepoints in global trade.

Hegseth also mentioned about the U.S. Army AH-64 Apache helicopter that went down near the strait this week. He said the two pilots were “in good shape” and praised their performance in what he called a “contested environment,” adding that Iran “doesn’t really know how to see” the vessels the U.S. is moving through.