The U.S. struck additional targets in Iran on Monday, after Tehran defied American demands that it publicly declare the Strait of Hormuz open and instead closed the strategic waterway.
U.S. forces hit Iranian air defenses, surveillance positions and drone capabilities, an official said, extending several days of back-and-forth strikes that began when Iran fired on ships last week to stop traffic through a U.S.-backed route through the strait.
A senior Trump administration official said Friday that the U.S. expected Iran to say publicly that the strait would be open, it wouldn't fire on ships that attempt to cross, every channel through the strait would be open, and traffic would be toll-free.
Instead, on Monday, Iran did the opposite. State media said the waterway is closed and the country's Foreign Ministry said the violence that disrupted traffic through the strait over the past week was the result of U.S. attempts to shepherd ships through an alternative channel, which hugs the coast of Oman.
The comments herald the likelihood of a continued standoff over control of the strait that is undermining President Trump's preliminary peace deal and risking further pressure on global oil markets.
Speaking to Fox News, Trump accused Iran of breaking the deal and said the U.S. would take over the waterway and demand compensation for the service.
"We'll become the guardian of the strait," he said, "and we should be reimbursed for that."
The rising risks for shipowners are already cutting short a recovery in traffic that began after Trump signed his deal with Iran on June 17.
Data firm Kpler, which tracks ships via satellite imagery and other data, said confirmed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend fell by more than half from the previous weekend, to just 19, similar to levels that prevailed before the preliminary peace deal was signed. Most ships used the channel approved by Iran or clandestine routes, while traffic through the corridor near Oman backed by the U.S. dried up, Kpler said.
Trump's memorandum of understanding with Iran was aimed at opening the Strait of Hormuz and relieving pressure on the global economy. It initially pushed oil prices down sharply, but also set off a test of wills that has escalated into regular exchanges of fire between the U.S. and Iran.
The root of the dispute is Paragraph 5, which says Iran will make arrangements to restore shipping through the strategic waterway and then work with Oman to determine how to administer it in the future. But it also includes an Iranian pledge to ensure safe passage and remove military obstacles such as mines.
Senior Trump administration officials said Friday that the text clearly requires Iran to open the strait and stop shooting at ships. Iranian hard-liners, however, have used it to push for exclusive control over the waterway as a source of leverage.
Iran has been pressuring Oman, which controls the southern side of the strait, to go along with its plan for control. Instead, Oman has been operating a channel through the strategic waterway that runs through its territorial waters and skirts the lanes managed by Tehran.
During a visit by Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on Saturday, Oman offered a compromise where no tolls would be charged in Oman's territorial waters and Iran would decide what it wants for its own maritime corridor, a Middle East official said.
Iran reflected the compromise. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps signaled its displeasure with the idea by firing at ships in the waterway, and Iranian state media condemned the outcome of the meeting as a result of U.S. pressure.
Iran struck Oman during the exchanges of fire in recent days, escalating its attacks. The Middle East official said Iran hit the port town of Duqm and an Omani naval base in Musandam, which serves as an operations center for monitoring traffic in the strait.
Tit-for-tat exchanges between the two sides intensified over the weekend, with the American military responding to Iranian attacks on shipping with strikes on a range of targets and Tehran retaliating against several of Washington's regional allies.
Iran fired at sites in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar.
The U.S. conducted multiple waves of strikes on Iranian military targets over the past three days. The attacks, like previous rounds, were designed to degrade Iran's ability to launch attacks on commercial vessels transiting the strait and focused on areas near the strait and along the coast.
The Revolutionary Guard began shooting at civilian ships moving through the Strait of Hormuz again Sunday, according to U.S. military spokesman Tim Hawkins. U.S. aircraft successfully shot down an Iranian cruise missile and one-way attack drone, he said.
The skirmishes represented a higher level of military activity between the two foes since the ceasefire went into effect last month.
Now the two sides are locked in a stalemate over the strait, a waterway through which 20% of the world's oil flowed before Iran effectively shut it down during the war. Trump administration officials have grown pessimistic about negotiations with Tehran and frustrated about Iran's continued attacks on ships.
On Friday, the senior officials told reporters that a nuclear deal was increasingly unlikely and warned that there would be serious consequences if Iran didn't guarantee safe passage of ships.
The military said the U.S. has helped facilitate the successful transit of more than 800 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil since early May, even as Iran threatened ships transiting without its permission.
Shipping traffic, however, remains well below where it was before the war.
Write to Benoit Faucon at benoit.faucon@wsj.com, Rebecca Feng at rebecca.feng@wsj.com and Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 13, 2026 08:57 ET (12:57 GMT)
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