The United States is moving to dramatically escalate its maritime pressure campaign against Iran, with plans to board and seize Iran-linked oil tankers and commercial vessels in international waters — a step that would represent the most sweeping naval enforcement action of the conflict and send shockwaves through global shipping markets already rattled by renewed Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.

The plans, reported by the Wall Street Journal citing U.S. officials, are part of a broader administration strategy now publicly branded as “Economic Fury” — a campaign to sever Iran’s oil export revenue, enforce the naval blockade, and force Tehran into nuclear concessions before the Wednesday expiration of the existing ceasefire framework.

The diplomatic backdrop darkened sharply on Saturday when Iranian forces fired on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz — including a French ship and a UK freighter — and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed to have closed the waterway, reversing a Friday announcement that it had agreed to open it.

The attack on allied-flagged vessels introduces a new dimension of risk: France and the United Kingdom, both NATO members, now have direct stakes in how the U.S. responds. The incidents are the clearest evidence yet that the ceasefire — already strained after marathon Pakistan talks ended without a breakthrough — is functionally on life support heading into the final days before its Wednesday expiration.

Iran’s oil exports — roughly 1.6 million barrels per day, shipped almost entirely to China’s independent refineries — represent the primary target. Cutting this revenue stream is the economic lever the administration believes can finally force the concessions it failed to extract in Islamabad.

Ahead of Monday’s return to negotiations, Trump reissued his most sweeping military threat of the conflict — this time framing it explicitly as an offer first, a promise second.

Despite the rhetoric, Trump confirmed that the United States will return to the negotiating table Monday evening, with a delegation led once again by Vice President JD Vance — who led the previous round of 21-hour talks in Islamabad that ended without an agreement.

The gaps that sank the Islamabad talks have not narrowed in the intervening days. Key sticking points remain: how long Iran would halt uranium enrichment; whether it would regain access to billions in frozen assets; how any agreement would be verified and enforced; and the fate of Iran’s existing stockpile of highly enriched uranium. Trump has claimed Iran agreed to hand over that stockpile — Tehran has flatly rejected the characterization.

Officials acknowledge the paradox: the administration is escalating its naval campaign and renewing its most severe infrastructure threats at the same moment it is sending its most senior diplomatic team back to the table. Analysts describe it as a “maximalist approach” — every lever pulled simultaneously to generate the maximum pressure before Wednesday’s clock runs out.

Whether Iran’s leadership, watching the “dark fleet” being targeted and power plant strikes threatened, will calculate that a deal is preferable to continued confrontation is the question that now defines the next 72 hours.

Sources: Wall Street Journal, White House Truth Social posts, CENTCOM, U.S. Treasury Department. Follow live coverage at fandfnews.com.