Iran live updates: After launching strikes, US warns of escalation if Iran responds

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said that the U.S.'s naval blockade against Iran amounts to a military act and warned that Iran would respond militarily if the U.S. intensifies its blockade, in a a video statement on Iranian state media Tuesday.

If the United States' "will is that we do not export oil" from the Gulf, "no one will be able to export oil," Ghalibaf said.

Ghalibaf said Iranian forces are resisting the U.S. effort to get ships across the Strait of Hormuz. While Ghalibaf acknowledged that “the enemy managed to get some ships” through Hormuz, he stressed that Iranian forces remain “in complete control of the strait and will not allow it to be opened."

He also said the U.S. is giving ships "false guarantees" about its ability to cross a southern route in Hormuz, adding that ships that try to do so are being targeted.

"America wants to use the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz in violation of the Memorandum of Understanding, and we will not allow it," he said.

U.S. forces have begun striking Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps targets in Iran at 12 p.m. on Tuesday, U.S. Central Command said.

"The strikes follow recent attempted attacks by the IRGC against commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and against American service members deployed to the region," CENTCOM said.

On the sidelines of the G20 summit in North Carolina on Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent teased that there would be more sanctions on banks that the Trump administration is alleging facilitate business with Iran as part of their economic pressure campaign on Iran.

When asked, Bessent said that the level of intensity of these sanctions will be the gamechanger in upping pressure on Iran's economy.

"It's something at this level of intensity, the Treasury now has five new authorities, and it is across digital assets. It is across aviation. It is across maritime, and we are flexing every day," Bessent said.

"We are speaking to our allies here, who have all come forward, and we have had a great show of support, whether it's from the EU, the ECB, the the UK, the UAE, the Bahrainians. So we have seen great support around the world, and we have zero tolerance," Bessent later added.

Bessent added his plan to "economically asphyxiate this regime" to get them ready to a deal that President Donald Trump will approve of.

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei called recent U.S. strikes a "strategic mistake of its own making" and said the U.S. "are addicted to greed and mistaking negotiation for dictation," at a news conference Tuesday.

On Nuclear weapons, he said it will abide by obligations of the treaty and said Iran sees nuclear weapons "as the most destructive weapons of mass destruction -- are not only contrary to our religious teachings, but also anti-civilization and anti-humanity."

On President Donald Trump's claims that the U.S. incursions aim is to eliminate Iran's nuclear weapon development Baqaei said: "From the beginning, the excuse they raised was an 'imminent threat,' then the danger of Iran's nuclear bomb, something they continue to repeat."

"This is a pattern where the United States fabricates a lie each time to justify its crime. The fact that we prepare ourselves and consider the necessary measures for our defense within the territory of the Islamic Republic of Iran is none of anyone's business," he said.

He went on to insist that Iran has no nuclear weapons development at Pickaxe Mountain.