Amid wild fluctuations in oil prices and Iranian strikes on Gulf states’ petroleum sites, U.S. President Donald Trump issued a stark warning on Tuesday to the Islamic Republic.
“If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far,” Trump wrote on TruthSocial.
“Additionally, we will take out easily destroyable targets that will make it virtually impossible for Iran to ever be built back ... — Death, fire and fury will reign upon them. But I hope and pray that it does not happen,” Trump wrote.
Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, responded on X to Trump’s threat, writing that Iranians did not fear it and that Trump or the United States may be “the ones who would vanish.”
The insistence on the opening of the shipping route is “a gift from the United States of America to China, and all of those Nations that heavily use the Hormuz Strait. Hopefully, it is a gesture that will be greatly appreciated,” Trump wrote in his TruthSocial post.
Petroleum prices have fluctuated significantly this week, going from $120 a barrel on Monday to $93 on Tuesday following a statement by Trump that the operation in Iran was “very complete,” the BBC reported.
Trump’s remark Monday afternoon about “Operation Epic Fury,” which the United States is conducting jointly and alongside Israel’s “Operation Roaring Lion” in Iran, likely prompted a drop to $83. This happened after Trump told CBS News that the operation’s objectives were “very complete,” adding: “We’re very far ahead of schedule.”
But the price, which had hovered around 72$ before the operation’s launch on Feb. 28, went up by $10 to $93 after Trump added, in a later remark, that while the war would be over “very soon,” it was not over yet.
“We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” he told a gathering of Republican lawmakers in Florida in a later comment. “We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long-running danger once and for all.”
In addition to targeting Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East, Iran has targeted the petroleum infrastructure of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, among other countries, and threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, which would cut off oil-producing Gulf states from the direct and quickest shipping route to major consumers, including India, China and Japan.
The United States has said it would accompany ships in the Strait to protect them, but this has not persuaded major shipping companies to resume traffic, according to Shaul Chorev, director of the Research Center for Marine Policy and Strategy (MPS) at the National Center for the Blue Economy in Israel.
Protective escort is “not simple to accomplish,” Chorev, a rear admiral in the Israeli Navy reserves, told The Epoch Times in an interview published earlier this week. The strait is 20 miles across, and while the United States has taken out much of the Iranian navy, “the Iranians can hit passing vessels from land, using drones, rockets and fast boats that can attach mines to ships,” he said. Chorev added he was not aware of shipping companies agreeing to transport Gulf oil through the Strait under American protection.
On Monday, Iran continued targeting neighboring countries, including the United Arab Emirates, where authorities in Fujairah said they were dealing with a fire in the Foiz Petroleum area.
Alarm sirens blared on Tuesday in the UAE, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and Kuwaiti authorities said they intercepted several Iranian projectiles, the Associated Press reported.
