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Strike, blockade, and vows
Iran’s Foreign Ministry condemned an American military strike that targeted parts of Hormuz Island, accusing the U.S. military of "violating Iran's national sovereignty and territorial integrity."
“violating Iran's national sovereignty and territorial integrity”
In the same statement carried by Iran’s official news agency IRNA, the ministry said the attack "resulted in the martyrdom and injury of a number of steadfast defenders of our homeland and our beloved citizens" and vowed that Iran’s armed forces "will not hesitate to exercise their inherent right to legitimate self-defense."
Iran also framed the broader U.S. pressure campaign as an ongoing "naval blockade and economic war against Iran," and said "We will respond firmly to any act of aggression by the enemy in the appropriate manner."
Separately, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf warned in a video message on Tuesday, September 1, that if the United States intensifies its maritime blockade, Tehran will respond militarily, saying, "If they intensify the blockade, we will definitely respond militarily" and "everyone will be the loser."
Inflation, logistics, and daily life
A Euronews Farsi exclusive described a reinstated U.S. naval blockade off Iran's southern coast that it said has brought Iran’s primary commercial lifelines to a "virtual halt."
The report said maritime enforcement resumed in mid-July after a one-month pause after the Islamabad Memorandum, and that since then the blockade has disrupted "over 80% of Iran's heavy imports and non-oil exports."
In interviews for the series, a 45-year-old international shipping specialist based in Tehran, Gisoo, said, "Since the war began, maybe one out of ten cargo ships leaving China actually reaches Iran," and described containers sitting in Hong Kong, Karachi, or Jebel Ali for months.
A 60-year-old long-haul trucker from Kermanshah, Aras, told Euronews Farsi that "Bandar Abbas is dead" and that cargo from Pakistan now enters through Rimdan, which he said has "no facilities, no dust control, just extreme heat," while he added that fetching a load from Rimdan to Tehran pays around 250 million tomans (€1,086).
Conditions, reserves, and escalation risk
Reuters reported that for the first time on record, Iran has gone about seven weeks without shipping meaningful crude exports through the Strait of Hormuz, saying the U.S. naval blockade succeeds where years of sanctions failed by cutting off one of Tehran’s main sources of foreign-currency earnings.
“no Iranian crude cargoes have successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz to China”
Reuters said the U.S. reinstated its blockade on Iran on July 14 as part of their six-month conflict, and that since then "no Iranian crude cargoes have successfully transited the Strait of Hormuz to China" according to Kpler, Vortexa and TankerTrackers.com.
Iran’s Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati told the semi-official Tasnim news agency that the central bank was ready to inject up to $2 billion into the foreign exchange market, and said, "Iran has (foreign) currency and it has enough," while warning that "These claims are just psychological warfare."
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Bishkek, Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian said Tehran would "immediately reciprocate" if the United States returns to its commitments under the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding, and the same Reuters account of the conditions referenced by the report said the Supreme National Security Council’s six conditions include "the lifting of the US naval blockade" and "the lifting of sanctions."