US Escalates Iran Conflict with 'Economic Fury' Campaign Targeting Oil Ships

- The US war with Iran has entered a new phase, with the US seizing Iran-linked vessels and posting footage of the operation and Iran retaliating by attacking commercial ships near its coast and putting out footage that purports to show a takeover. For the Trump administration, the effort to go after ships is known as Economic Fury. It's a pressure campaign that comes after a bombing campaign they called Epic Fury. It started when the US imposed a blockade of Iranian ports to cut off hundreds of millions of dollars a day in trade, which legal experts say is a lawful act of war.

US ships and aircraft are enforcing that blockade largely in the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea. - Turn around or prepare to be boarded. If you do not comply with this blockade, we will use force. - If a crew doesn't follow directions, the US disables the ship and then sends a team to board the vessel, which happens Sunday when a container ship named Touska tried to evade the blockade. Then this week, the crackdown on Iran-linked ships expanded beyond the waters of the Middle East, and the US said it would board vessels providing material support to Iran.

- This includes dark fleet vessels carrying Iranian oil. - On Tuesday, the US kicked off this effort when it took control of the sanctioned and stateless vessel Tiffany in the Indo-Pacific. The vessel was carrying around 2 million barrels of Iranian oil loaded at Kharg Island according to shipping analytics from Kpler. If the US keeps this up, this part of the campaign could look a lot like what happened when the US enforced a blockade of dark fleet vessels serving Venezuela, when they used seizure warrants and law enforcement authorities to seize ships around the world, in the Caribbean, the Atlantic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean.

Together with the blockade, taking dark fleet vessels out of operation aims to choke off Iran's ability to export oil and fund its war efforts. The White House told us that the Defense, State, and Treasury Department are working together to put maximum economic pressure on the Iranian regime as negotiations continue, and that President Trump is optimistic that all of these factors will help facilitate a peace deal. But so far, negotiations are on hold, and Iran has retaliated by attacking commercial ships.

The regime says talks can resume only after the US lifts the blockade. Meanwhile, Trump and other officials, like Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, have made it clear that the blockade and the pressure campaign will stay in place until there's a deal.