WASHINGTON — President Trump proclaimed Tuesday that the Strait of Hormuz has been fully de-mined and reopened, adding that there are no further talks planned with Iran now that the 60-day period for negotiations has ended.
“There are no talks or conversations going on, or scheduled, with the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Naval Blockade remains in full force and effect,” Trump posted on Truth Social.
“The Hormuz Strait is open and operating. All water mines have been removed or detonated.”
For months, Iran has been carrying out sporadic attacks and laying down mines meant to scare off ships from traversing the Strait of Hormuz, through which nearly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil flowed in peacetime.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright has claimed that some 9 million barrels of oil are going through the Strait of Hormuz almost every day, a sharp dip from the roughly 20 million barrels of oil that used to go through the Strait of Hormuz every day on average.
The president’s latest statement came one day after he threatened the nation of Oman if its rulers aided Tehran in its effort to control the critical waterway.
“If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s–t out of them,” Trump told Fox News’ Trey Yingst in a phone interview Monday.
“I don’t think [Oman] behaved very well, but we’d handle them very easily, just like we do others,” the president later told reporters in the Oval Office.
In June, both Iran and Oman refused to rule out charging some sort of fee for passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Last month, Oman floated the possibility of a voluntary fee system to cover expenses related to environmental as well as search and rescue.
Washington and Iran agreed to a preliminary memorandum of understanding in June, which opened a 60-day window to hash out a full-fledged deal. But after Iran continued to carry out attacks in the Strait of Hormuz, the cease-fire imploded.
Also Monday, Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy Jared Kushner told Yingst that “conversations between the US government and different areas of the Iranian government, at all areas, is probably more robust than it’s maybe ever been, and so there’s been a lot of good dialogues, which I think is very, very helpful.”
However, Kushner added that “right now,” Iran is “not showing any interest in doing something that makes sense for us.”
