In two publications in Truth Social, he also stated that the US Navy will intercept any vessel that has paid tolls to Iran to safely cross the strait.
The president Donald Trump announced this Sunday a naval blockade North American troops to the Strait of Hormuz and threatened to destroy “the little that remains of Iran”, after peace talks in Islamabad collapsed overnight.
In two posts on Truth Social, Trump said the United States military will begin blocking ships entering or leaving the strait and will also intercept any vessel that has paid tolls to Iran to cross safely.
He further added that any Iranian who fires at the US military or other peaceful vessels will be “REDUCED TO DUST”, while the Navy works to demine the strait.
“THIS IS WORLDWIDE EXTORTION”, Trump in one of the publications, adding that “the leaders of countries, especially the United States of America, they will never allow themselves to be extorted”.
The weekend talks, mediated by Pakistan and representing the highest level of contact between a US official and Iranians since the 1979 Islamic revolution, aimed to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and resume the flow of about a fifth of the world’s oil through that route.
Reopening the strait has become an economic imperative for Trump, whose approval ratings have fallen in a context of soaring oil prices and growing anxiety about the impact of war in an already unstable global economy, notes .
But the talks ended in the early hours of Sunday, without any progress on the issue, which, according to Trump, made the rest of the discussion irrelevant.
“They chose not to accept our terms”, said the vice president JD Vance to journalists in Islamabad, before leaving for Washington. “The simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek to obtain a nuclear weapon or the means that would allow them to achieve it quickly.”
A US official, authorized to speak on condition of anonymity, said that no member of the negotiating team remains in Islamabadincluding Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff or members of the technical teams.
On the Iranian side, the explanation for the failure of this weekend’s talks was the lack of confidence.
The President of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibafthis Sunday on the social network previous warswe have no confidence in the opposing party.”
However, some allies of the President already argue that the blockade constitutes a negotiating tactics, not the end of the fragile ceasefire two-week period announced by Trump last week.
“I think he’s putting Iran to the test”, these Nikki HaleyTrump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday morning. “This is a game of nerves. It’s about who gives in first. The Iranian regime expects Trump to back down. Today, he showed he won’t.”
Trump himself seemed to suggest it in the interview with Bartiromo, when describing as a bargaining chip his threat, made last week, that “an entire civilization will die”, with the aim of bringing Iran to the negotiating table.
“They did not leave the negotiating table. I predict they will come back and give us everything we want“, Trump said. “And I tell my people: I want it all. I don’t want 90%, I don’t want 95%. He said to them: ‘I want everything.’”
Still, he acknowledged that the military operation in Iran likely had a political cost — especially in fuel pricesand added that, although he expects prices to fall before the midterm elections, they could remain at the same level or even become “perhaps a little higher”.
“I don’t think this will last much longer”, he stated.
