United States President Donald Trump says the US Navy will commence a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, after “Iran promised to open the Strait of Hormuz” and “knowingly failed to do so”. 

In his first comments since negotiations in Islamabad between the US and Iran failed to reach an agreement, the US president said on social media platform Truth Social that Iran’s actions in the strait were ‘”world extortion”.

He also said the US Navy would begin “destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits (sic)”.

Iran war live updates: For the latest news on the Middle East crisis, read our blog

“Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be blown to hell,” Mr Trump said. 

He said “other countries” would be involved in the blockade. 

Key takeaways from the stalled truce talks

After an absolute marathon of overnight negotiations and historic high-level talks between the United States and Iran, a deal to end the war that has thrown the Middle East and global energy supplies into chaos has not been reached.

Mr Trump added that he had instructed the navy to intercept ships in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran to transit the strait.

Defending the planned blockade, Mr Trump told Fox News that Iran could not control which ships go through the Strait of Hormuz, declaring that either every ship should have safe passage or none would.

“We’re not going to let Iran make money on selling oil to people that they like,” Trump said on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures program. 

“It’s going to be all or none and that’s the way it is.”

The blockade would be similar to what the US did with Venezuela, though on a larger scale, Trump said, suggesting that more tankers would come to the US to buy oil as a result of the blockade.

Nuclear program ‘only thing that matters’

Addressing the talks in Islamabad, Mr Trump said the meeting “went well” but claimed that “Iran is unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions”. 

Mr Trump said Iran’s refusal to give up its nuclear program was the “only thing that matters”. 

“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,” he said.

Iran maintains its own effective blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, in which about a fifth of the global oil and LNG supplies pass through, with shipping traffic at a fraction of pre-war levels.

AP

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