Trump announces blockade of Strait of Hormuz as prez blasts Iran for ‘WORLD EXTORTION’
Trump announces blockade of Strait of Hormuz as prez blasts Iran for ‘WORLD EXTORTION’
WASHINGTON — President Trump announced that the US will begin a sweeping blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, vowing to fight back against Iran’s “WORLD EXTORTION” and ensure that no one paying tolls to the regime will get through the critical oil chokepoint.
Trump claimed that the negotiations with Iran that concluded Saturday without a deal “went well,” but faulted the Islamic Republic for refusing to budge on its nuclear program, which he described as “the only point that really mattered.”
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump declared on Truth Social Sunday.
“At some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis, but Iran has not allowed that to happen by merely saying, ‘There may be a mine out there somewhere,’ that nobody knows about but them.”
“THIS IS WORLD EXTORTION, and Leaders of Countries, especially the United States of America, will never be extorted.”
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.”
Over a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil supply once traversed through the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has used drones and missiles to deter oil vessels from traveling through the critical chokepoint.
Iran claims to have placed mines in the Strait but has lost track of them. It has attempted to charge a toll of $1 per barrel of oil for ships to get through safely, according to US officials.
Iran has sought to use revenue from those tolls to rebuild its country after the Operation Epic Fury attacks.
The president didn’t lay out a specific timeline for when the blockade will officially begin, but teased that it’s happening “soon.”
Trump announced a fragile two-week cease-fire with Iran last Tuesday after threatening earlier that day that “an entire civilization will die tonight” if Tehran didn’t cut a deal.
US officials, led by Vice President JD Vance, met with Iranian negotiators in Islamabad, Pakistan, for close to 21 hours of marathon talks to broker a more permanent end to the war.
But by the end of those talks, Vance announced that “we have not reached an agreement,” and US officials left. Few details of those negotiations were made public, but Trump claimed that “most points were agreed to,” just not the nuclear issue.
“In many ways, the points that were agreed to are better than us continuing our Military Operations to conclusion, but all of those points don’t matter compared to allowing Nuclear Power to be in the hands of such volatile, difficult, unpredictable people,” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post.
“That doesn’t matter because they were very unyielding as to the single most important issue.”
Trump also announced Sunday that the US will “begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits” and warned that any Iranian ship that fires at the US will be “BLOWN TO HELL.”
“Additionally and, at an appropriate moment, we are fully ‘LOCKED AND LOADED,’ and our Military will finish up the little that is left of Iran!”
On Saturday, the US sent two battleships through the Strait of Hormuz as part of an attempt to restore confidence in the critical waterway.
“We have minesweepers there now. We have highly sophisticated underwater minesweepers, which are the latest and the greatest,” Trump told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “But we’re also bringing in more traditional minesweepers.”
“I understand the UK and a couple of other countries are sending minesweepers. A lot of countries don’t have minesweepers.”
The president acknowledged that he is not sure how many mines Iran laid down, but noted that his “inclination” is that Tehran “has a few” mines placed in the Strait of Hormuz
