Trump says Iran ‘can’t blackmail us’ after Tehran closes the Strait of Hormuz again
Donald Trump has said Iran cannot “blackmail” the US following Tehran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz a day after it was reopened.
The US president also accused Iran of getting “a little cute” with its recent moves, saying “they have no navy, they have no air force, they have no leaders, they have no nothing … but we’re talking to them”.
On Friday, Iran had declared the strait — which usually carries a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas — open for commercial ships after a US-brokered ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Lebanon.
Following the announcement, Trump said a US blockade of Iranian ports would continue until its “transaction with Iran is 100 per cent complete”.
The Iranian central military responded by declaring the strait was again “under strict management and control of the armed forces”, saying the US had broken a promise by continuing its blockade.
It warned that any effort to cross “will be considered cooperation with the enemy, and the offending vessel will be targeted”.
In an interview on the country’s state TV, Ebrahim Azizi, the chairman of Iran’s parliamentary National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, said the US must “accept” that the negotiations are “not a place for bullying, not a place for arrogance”.
“It is a place for humility, a place for courtesy and respect toward the Iranian nation,” he said.
Trump, however, has continued to maintain that the two countries “have very good conversations going on”.
There are just four days remaining before the end of the two-week ceasefire in the US-Israel war on Iran.
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