Iran says a Gulf exclusion zone will answer U.S. economic warfare

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said Tehran will publish a new restricted zone in the Persian Gulf in the coming days, drawn from the line of the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports and extending into Gulf waters. Any ship that enters the zone, he told state television, will be placed on an Iranian sanctions list. He also said maps of a new Hormuz corridor running through Iranian and Omani waters are ready to be signed after talks with Muscat.

On Tuesday he restated the threat on X. Economic warfare, he wrote, will be met by a maritime exclusion zone to the blockade perimeter. The operational posture toward U.S. warships and bases, he added, has been fundamentally recalibrated. Iranian media said a Qassem Basir ballistic missile had been fired toward U.S. ships near the strait. The U.S. military said its ships evaded missile attacks. Rezaei framed the missile shots as a warning already delivered.

What the shipping numbers show

Kpler data cited by Reuters on Tuesday counted seven commodity vessels through the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, against eight the day before. Traffic through Bab el-Mandeb rose from 17 to 29 on the same comparison. Some ships sail with transponders off and drop out of those tallies. Earlier Kpler work this summer had already shown daily Hormuz commodity transits collapsing at points to a seven-day average near seven, with a large share of remaining crossings on an Iranian-defined route that the IMO has not adopted.

About a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil normally moves through the strait. Brent was near $98 as the restricted-zone talk circulated, after Houthi strikes on southern Saudi energy sites wounded 73 people and forced temporary shutdowns at some plants. Goldman Sachs raised its Brent and WTI forecasts for December 2026 and 2027 on the view that Middle East shipping disruption will last into next year.

Two rule books on the same water

The proposed Iranian zone is designed to begin where the U.S. blockade ends. A ship that obeys Washington can then fall inside Tehran’s new list. A ship that obeys Tehran can fall inside the American perimeter. Rezaei said Iran will commit to keeping Hormuz open when the United States stops threats and attacks. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the era of proportional responses had ended after a weekend in which the United States struck three Iranian oil tankers and Iran attacked American ships.

CENTCOM said it had redirected 94 commercial vessels under the blockade. Coordinates for the new Iranian zone have not been published. The Oman memorandum on a managed corridor has not been released either. Until those documents appear, the operational fact is the daily count: single-digit confirmed commodity crossings at Hormuz, a rising Bab el-Mandeb total, and two governments writing opposite instructions onto the same narrow water.