U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that military strikes against Iran would expand to include energy infrastructure and bridges unless Tehran comes to the table for negotiations.
“They’re going to expand. I’ll save the energy targets for last, but ultimately we’ll hit energy targets,” the president told Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst. “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight. We’re going to hit them very hard tomorrow night. We’re going to hit them very hard the night after, and then next week gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants, next week comes the bridges. We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
Trump earlier on Tuesday announced that the United States will impose what he called a “full blockade” on vessels traveling to or from Iranian ports or carrying Iranian cargo, while abandoning a proposed 20% fee on cargo transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
“Oil is flowing like never before,” Trump wrote, crediting U.S. forces for securing the strategic waterway. “The Strait of Hormuz is open to all ship traffic except for Iran.”
Trump said he had decided, after what he described as productive discussions with Middle Eastern leaders, to scrap the proposed shipping and security fee on all cargo passing through the strait in favor of “trade and investment deals that the various Gulf states will be making into the United States.”
“Those investments will be massive but, at the same time, extraordinarily good for them, and their future,” Trump wrote, adding that the agreements would bring “factories, plants and equipment pour into the United States at historic levels.”
Trump also reiterated his administration’s hard-line stance toward Tehran, writing that “the days of killing hundreds of thousands of people, including 52,000 protesters, are over,” and again declaring that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
The president told Yingst during the interview that “we knew they wanted a nuclear weapon” when asked if there was specific intelligence that caused the U.S. to launch its operation. “If they have a nuclear weapon, Israel wouldn’t be here.” Pressed on Tehran saying it doesn’t want a nuclear weapon, Trump said that “everything they say is a lie. They lie. I’ve never seen anything like it. They also come out and they will tell you that we never discussed nuclear, and we’re in a room for five hours and that’s all we discussed and they’ll walk out and say, ‘nuclear was not discussed.’ Everything was discussed ad nauseam.”
Trump said that the Islamic Republic was going to have a nuclear weapon “within two weeks.”
“Had we not done the B-2 bombers. Had we not bombed their nuclear sites, their three nuclear sites, and there is another one we are looking at right now,” he said, apparently referring to Pickaxe Mountain.
