Trump threatens Iran’s oil, power infrastructure

U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to attack the Islamic Republic’s critical energy and water infrastructure unless it immediately opens the Strait of Hormuz.

“The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran. Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately ‘Open for Business,’ we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet ‘touched,’” the president wrote on his Truth Social account.

“This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year ‘Reign of Terror.’ Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP,” the social media post concluded.

The Iranian regime has received messages through intermediaries signaling Washington’s willingness to negotiate, but on Monday, Tehran responded negatively to the U.S. proposals, calling them “unrealistic, illogical and excessive,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said, according to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-affiliated semi-official Tasnim News Agency.

Baghaei’s remarks came a day after the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey met in Islamabad for initial talks on proposals to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping. “Our position is clear. We are under military aggression. Therefore, all our efforts and strength are focused on defending ourselves,” he said.

U.S. negotiations with Iran are “very good” and a deal “could be soon,” Trump said on Sunday.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One en route to Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, the president said talks with Tehran earlier in the day went well and that Washington is “getting a lot of the things that they should have given us a long time ago. We’ll see how it works out. But they’re very good. They are moving along very nicely.”

He added that both direct and indirect negotiations were taking place, while cautioning that “we can never know with Iran because we negotiate with them and then we always have to blow them up.

“We will probably, I think we’ll make a deal with them. Pretty sure. But it’s possible we won’t,” Trump said.

Asked later by a reporter whether he predicts a deal will be reached with Tehran this upcoming week, he said, “I do see a deal in Iran, yeah. It could be soon.”

In an interview published the same day, Trump said his “preference would be to take the oil” in Iran, a move that would involve the seizure of Kharg Island, even as he later told reporters aboard Air Force One that Tehran had agreed to allow 20 cargo ships carrying oil to transit through the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump briefly discussed the ongoing military campaign against the Iranian regime, saying that “they’ve destroyed a lot of additional targets today. The navy’s gone. The air force is gone. We know that. We destroyed many, many targets today. It was a big day.”

He later posted to his Truth Social account: “Big day in Iran. Many long sought after targets have been taken out and destroyed by our GREAT MILITARY, the finest and most lethal in the World. God bless you all! President DJT.”

The president said there had already been “regime change,” saying earlier leadership groups had been “decimated” and replaced by new figures he described as “more reasonable.” The original leaders were “dead or gone,” he said, adding that the current group represents a third iteration of leadership that he views as fundamentally different from its predecessors.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that Trump’s preference “is always peace,” but that if Iran “fails to understand they have been defeated militarily and will continue to be, President Trump will ensure they are hit harder than they have ever been hit before.” Leavitt said that the president “is prepared to unleash hell” on the Iranian regime.

She added that the Iranian regime’s last miscalculation “cost them their senior leadership, their navy, their air force and their air defense system. Any violence beyond this point will be because the Iranian regime refused to understand they have already been defeated and refused to come to a deal.”