Daniel Torok / The White House / Public domain / Cropped archive photograph, October 21, 2026; not Sunday’s announcement
President Donald Trump said Sunday that Task Force Iron Gate was “in full force and effect,” praising the new U.S. effort to restrict Iran’s weapons supply routes a day after Central Command announced the team’s creation.
“Coupled with history’s greatest Naval Blockade, very little gets into, or out of, Iran!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. His description of the blockade’s effectiveness was a presidential claim, rather than a new accounting of shipments or trade flows.
The president’s remarks followed CENTCOM’s November 7 announcement that Adm. Brad Cooper had directed the formation of an approximately 20-person team of civilian and military staff in Tampa, Florida.
The command said the team would coordinate with other U.S. government agencies to prevent the movement of advanced weapons, dual-use technologies, sanctioned materials and illegal revenue across Iran’s land borders and the Caspian Sea. Its stated role is interagency coordination from Florida, not a newly announced deployment of U.S. ground troops inside Iran.
“The establishment of Task Force Iron Gate reinforces the success of our ironclad blockade against Iran at sea,” Cooper said in the official release. He said closer cooperation with other agencies would further constrain Iran’s ability to finance terrorism, rebuild weapons factories and replenish its military.
The task force is intended to complement the maritime blockade by focusing on overland and Caspian routes. CENTCOM said enforcement at sea continued against ships entering or leaving Iranian ports and estimated that the blockade had prevented more than $25 billion in crude-oil exports in recent months. That figure is the command’s estimate.
Sunday’s development was Trump’s public endorsement of the initiative, rather than its initial launch. JBizNews reported the task force’s creation on Saturday.
JBizNews Desk | Washington
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