President Donald Trump yesterday said that he has ordered the US Navy ‘to shoot and kill any boat’ that is laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump’s post on social media came shortly after the US military seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Tehran over the strait through which 20 per cent of all crude oil and natural gas traded passes.
“I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be ... that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted, adding that US minesweepers ‘are clearing the Strait right now’.
“I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!” he added.
Trump has aggressively pushed Tehran to fully reopen the strait as part of a shaky ceasefire, which was set to expire this week before being unilaterally extended by the president.
The US has now imposed a retaliatory naval blockade on Iranian ports in the region, in an effort to force Tehran to loosen its grip on the waterway and come to the negotiating table.
The US Central Command said it has so far directed 31 ships to turn around or return to port as part of the blockade.
Trump insists that the US, not Iran, is calling the shots in the strait.
“We have total control over the Strait of Hormuz,” he wrote in another Truth Social post later.
“No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy. It is ‘Sealed up Tight,’ until such time as Iran is able to make a DEAL!” he added.
The President said that he is under no pressure to quickly reach a deal with Iran to end the war, arguing that time favours the United States and not Iran.
He described Iran’s military position as significantly weakened, saying: “Iran’s Navy is lying at the bottom of the Sea, their Air Force is demolished, their Anti Aircraft and Radar Weaponry is gone, their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse – Time is not on their side!”
He continued to say that any agreement to end the war would be made on US terms and his timeline, emphasising that a deal will come only ‘when it’s appropriate and good’ for the US, as well as ‘our allies and, in fact, the rest of the world’.
Pakistan, which hosted talks this month and had been preparing for a second round before it was called off on Tuesday, was still in touch with both sides, a Pakistani government source said.
Iranian officials were still declining to commit to attend over the US blockade, the source added.
Tanker traffic remains far below prewar levels in the strait.
More than 100 ships would transit the strait each day in peacetime.
But that number has fallen to single digits on most days after Iran imposed its de facto closure.
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