U.S. strikes Iran and blocks oil sales in new threats to ceasefire

WASHINGTON – The United States launched fresh airstrikes on Iran and revoked a waiver that allowed it to sell oil globally, further imperiling a peace agreement after a spate of attacks on ships in the Strait of Hormuz.

The “powerful strikes” were meant to “impose heavy costs for targeting and attacking commercial shipping crewed by innocent civilians in an international waterway,” U.S. Central Command said in a statement on X.

Hours earlier, the U.S. Treasury Department announced it was barring new sales of Iranian oil after Tuesday, a move that sent oil prices surging. Gold also slumped amid fears that elevated energy prices might prompt the U.S. Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.

Taken together, the U.S. action marked the most serious threat yet to the interim agreement signed between the two countries’ leaders on June 17. They also threatened to scuttle negotiations aimed at achieving a permanent peace within 60 days of that deal.

The U.S. Central Command said more than 60 small boats of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were among the targets hit.

Both sides accused the other of violating the ceasefire. The U.S. blamed Iran for a series of attacks on commercial shippers in Hormuz over the last day – the most since the agreement went into effect.

Iran, meanwhile, said the U.S. operation and the waiver revocation were violations of the two sides’ agreement. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi vowed “decisive actions” in response.

A U.S. official, speaking under customary condition of anonymity before the American strikes took place, said Iran would only get the benefits of its deal with the U.S. if it exhibits good behavior.

But the official added that negotiators continue to work in good faith toward a final deal, suggesting the U.S. wasn’t ready to abandon the peace process completely.

The end of attacks on commercial shipping and the previous 60-day waiver allowing Iranian oil sales were key elements of the memorandum of understanding that halted fighting between the United States and Iran.

That deal was meant to create space for more detailed negotiations on the fate of Iran’s nuclear program and the future of the strait.

Even so, the memorandum has held only tenuously. In late June, Iran struck a Singapore-flagged container ship in the strait, prompting the U.S. to retaliate and setting off a series of back-and-forth attacks.

And Tehran has repeatedly said it wouldn’t allow vessels to transit the waterway without its permission, though it denied any involvement in an attack on a Qatar-linked vessel. President Donald Trump had pushed for ships to pass freely through the strait as they had done before the U.S. and Israel began attacking Iran in late February.

Bob McNally, president of Rapidan Energy Group and a former White House official, said the waiver revocation “is a signal to a complacent market that the ceasefire may not be as durable and solid as thought. The market has some risk pricing to do.”

The spate of attacks is a reminder of the continued risks to ships crossing through Hormuz, even with military forces protecting vessels that choose to cross by a route near Oman’s coastline.

Iran has also sought to steer commercial ships toward its shores and keep them from using the Omani route, according to U.S. Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Daryl Caudle.

He said Iran had laid mines in the strait as a way of channeling ships nearer to Iran. Their goal is to “force shipping into their side of the actual Strait of Hormuz,” he said in an interview with “Bloomberg This Weekend,” parts of which will be broadcast on Sunday.

“The Iranians are determined to show that they are in control of the Strait and that the only way to pass through safely is to take the northern route,” according to Claire McCleskey, co-founder of sanctions advisory firm Clarity Compliance Consulting and a former U.S. Treasury official.

In response the U.S. attacks Tuesday, Iran on Wednesday targeted U.S. military sites in Bahrain and Kuwait.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it carried out joint missile and drone operations against key U.S. military sites in Bandar Salman, Bahrain’s Fifth Naval District and Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait, and shot down a U.S. MQ9 drone that attempted to interfere in the operation.