Apr. 7 at 12:21 AM
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From Bloomberg:
"Trump Insists on Hormuz Opening in Iran Deal as Threats Escalate"
President Donald Trump insisted that freedom of navigation through the Strait of Hormuz be part of any deal and escalated threats to obliterate key Iranian infrastructure if his terms aren’t met before a Tuesday deadline.
Trump said Monday that talks with Iran are “going well,” even though he listed reopening the strait as “a very big priority.” The president in recent weeks has said that wasn’t among his core prerequisites for ending the conflict.
“We have to have a deal that’s acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything,” he said at a White House news conference.
Trump laid bare the consequences Iran would face if it doesn’t reach a deal by his Tuesday 8 p.m. cut-off, saying the US military could destroy “every bridge in Iran by 12 o’clock tomorrow night.” Power plants would be rendered “burning, exploding and never to be used again,” he said.
Attacking civilian infrastructure is barred by the Geneva Conventions, but Trump said he was “not at all” concerned about committing war crimes.
“I mean complete demolition by 12 o’clock, and it will happen over a period of four hours, if we wanted to,” he said. “We don’t want that to happen.”
Trump’s self-imposed deadline marks the latest pivotal moment in the war, now in its second month, which has killed thousands of people and triggered the largest-ever disruption to the global oil market. The president has struggled to find an off-ramp to the conflict — increasingly unpopular with Americans who are seeing average gasoline prices above
$4 a gallon.
Iran has warned that it would respond to the kind of strikes Trump is threatening against civilian targets by ramping up its own attacks on energy infrastructure in the Gulf — a move that could heighten the global fuel squeeze and amplify damage to the world economy.
The president’s comments on the strait also appeared to be at odds with past remarks from his administration about whether he’d be willing to end the war with the strait still closed. Last week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt didn’t list reopening Hormuz as a core US military objective when asked if Trump would declare victory even if passage through the strait remained slow.
Oil prices rose as Trump threatened more strikes on Iran, renewing traders’ fears that flows through the crucial Strait of Hormuz would remain curtailed for longer. Both benchmarks rose in choppy trading with Brent crude ending the session above
$109 a barrel while US crude rose nearly 1% to settle near
$112 a barrel.
Equities held small gains in a volatile session. Bonds and the dollar barely budged.
At the press conference, Trump mixed threats with an upbeat assessment of diplomatic conversations, even though Tehran earlier rejected a ceasefire proposal and instead demanded a permanent end to the war.
Trump said Vice President JD Vance is involved in the conversations and also mentioned special envoy Steve Witkoff, who had sought an agreement with Tehran before the US and Israel began the war in late February.
“I can tell you that we have a active, willing participant on the other side,” Trump said. “They’re negotiating, we think in good faith — we’re going to find out.”
Trump said, however, that it was “highly unlikely” that he’d move the deadline again.
Earlier Monday, Iran refused to agree to ceasefire terms relayed via Pakistan, which has been mediating efforts to end the conflict, which is now in its second month.
Leaders in Iran have instead called for a permanent end to the war, reconstruction efforts and the lifting of sanctions, in addition to protocols for ensuring safe passage through Hormuz, according to Iran’s state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.
Iran has said it would only allow strait operations to resume when it is compensated for damage from the war. Tehran has continued striking energy targets in neighboring Gulf countries, including Kuwait’s oil headquarters.
Axios reported that Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey are pushing to secure a potential ceasefire — lasting about 45 days — to head off threatened US strikes on Iran’s energy infrastructure and retaliation by the Islamic Republic against countries in the region.
Trump also pushed back on the notion that destroying Iranian bridges and power plants would constitute a war crime.
“I’m not worried about it,” Trump said. “You know what’s a war crime? Having a nuclear weapon, allowing a sick country with demented leadership to have a nuclear weapon — that’s a war crime.”
Trump in an expletive-laden post on Sunday amped up his threats to destroy Iran’s power plants and blow up “everything over there,” before announcing his new deadline. The move adds to a series of extensions since he began issuing similar ultimatums on March 21 to force Iran to reopen the strategic waterway.
