President Donald Trump threatened on Saturday to strike Iran’s power plants unless Tehran restores full freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, marking a sharp escalation as the US-Israeli war on Iran entered its fourth week.
The warning came as Trump faced growing pressure to secure the vital waterway after Iran said it would keep the strait closed to what it called “enemy ships”, sending oil prices higher and stocks lower.
“If Iran doesn’t fully open without a threat the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various power plants starting with the biggest one first,” Trump wrote on Truth Social at 23:44 GMT.
He did not say which facility he meant.
Iran’s army responded by warning it would target all US energy infrastructure in the region if Iran’s fuel and energy facilities were attacked, according to the source text.
Trump’s threat came less than a day after he spoke about winding down the war he launched alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 28, while the United States and Iran had been engaged in nuclear talks. Reuters reported on Friday that Trump had said the US was getting close to meeting its objectives in the war and was considering winding down military operations in the Middle East.
The Strait of Hormuz has become the central pressure point in the conflict. Around a fifth of the world’s oil and gas moves through the waterway in peacetime, but traffic has fallen sharply since the early days of the war. (Reuters)
Iran has said the strait remains open to all shipping except vessels linked to hostile states. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said last week he had been approached by several countries seeking safe passage for their ships and said the matter would be decided by Iran’s military.
The head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, said on Saturday that Iran’s ability to attack shipping in the strait had been degraded after US fighter jets dropped 5,000-pound bombs on an underground coastal site used to store anti-ship cruise missiles and mobile launchers. He said the strikes also destroyed intelligence sites and radar relays used to track vessel movements.
