US President, Donald Trump has given Iran a new 48-hour deadline to re-open the Strait of Hormuz, threatening to attack Iran’s power plants if freedom of navigation is not fully restored at the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours.
Trump’s threat on Truth social signals a dramatic escalation as the US-Israeli war on Iran shows no sign of abating.
Shipping traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes through during peacetime, has virtually ground to a halt since the early days of the war.
Trump’s statement comes as faces increasing pressure to secure the vital waterway that Iran has promised to keep closed to “enemy ships,” leading to soaring oil prices and plunging stock markets.
“If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST.”
Donald Trump
Trump’s escalatory comments came barely a day after he talked about “winding down” the war that he launched alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on February 28, when the US and Iran were engaged in nuclear negotiations.
In a social media post on Friday, March 20, 2026, Trump said that the US was “getting very close to meeting our objectives as we consider winding down our great Military efforts in the Middle East.”
The Head of US Central Command, Admiral Brad Cooper, asserted on Saturday that Iran’s ability to attack vessels on the strait had been “degraded” after US fighter jets dropped 5,000-pound (about 2,300kg) bombs on an underground Iranian coastal facility storing antiship cruise missiles and mobile launchers earlier this week.
Cooper said that the strike also destroyed “intelligence support sites and missile radar relays” used to monitor ship movements.
Iran Vows Retaliation If Fuel, Energy Infrastructure Attacked
Following Trump’s threat, the Iranian army said that it would target all energy infrastructure belonging to the US in the region if Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure were attacked.
Ebrahim Zolfaghari, Spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya central command, said that Iran will also attack desalination plants and information technology infrastructure linked to the US and Israel.
A Iranian news agency, meanwhile, noted that the late Chief of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, had warned that “the entire region will be blacked out within half an hour” if Iran’s electricity grid was targeted.
Iran has said the Strait of Hormuz is open to all except the US and its allies, with Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abbas Araghchi saying last week that he had been “approached by a number of countries” seeking safe passage for their vessels.
Speaking to a US television network, Araghchi said, “This is up to our military to decide,” adding that a group of ships from “different countries” had been allowed to pass, without providing details.
Mahdi Arabsadegh, a senior energy strategist affiliated with Iran’s Institution of Engineering and Technology, predicted that oil prices will hit $150 per barrel in the global market if the US and Israel’s war on the country continues for another 10 days.
Arabsadegh told an Iraniynews agency that Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz to “enemy ships” has prevented the passage of 21 million barrels of oil per day since the beginning of the war and has drastically affected supply.
He noted that the price of oil was $65 per barrel before the strait was shut, and it sharply rose to $119, despite US efforts to keep the price down. This includes the Trump administration’s decision to waive sanctions on purchases of Iranian oil at sea for 30 days.
Hard To Predict Trump’s Next Step
Paolo Von Schirach, President of the Global Policy Institute, said that Trump changes his mind “very quickly” and that it is hard to predict what his next step could be in the war on Iran.
Speaking with a news agency, the Analyst also said that it was unclear to him what “tools” Trump has to end the war.
“We look at his message saying the war is winding down. OK, good. Things are quiet. Maybe there is an off-ramp somehow. But now he says that if the Iranians don’t open the Strait of Hormuz, then we [US] are going to unleash hell and what have you. It is not quite clear to me what he wants and what the tools are to accomplish this.”
Paolo Von Schirach
Von Schirach added that it would be difficult to predict if the US can force Iran into submission, given its size and population.
Using Iraq as a reference, where 150,000 American troops were deployed over several years, Von Schirach predicted that the US might need as many as half a million American troops if Trump “wants to take over Iran.”
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