Trump Issues New Order on Strait of Hormuz

President Trump has given the US Navy a blunt new directive in the increasingly fraught Strait of Hormuz: open fire on any vessel caught laying mines. In a Truth Social post Thursday, he said there should be "no hesitation" and ordered American minesweepers to step up clearing operations in the crucial oil corridor by a factor of three. The moves come amid a US-imposed naval blockade on Iranian ports, intended to pressure Tehran to ease its own severe restrictions on ship traffic and return to negotiations, CNBC reports.

• "I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be (Their naval ships are ALL, 159 of them, at the bottom of the sea!), that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz. There is to be no hesitation," Trump wrote. "Additionally, our mine 'sweepers' are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!"

Trump, who has tied the standoff to a fragile ceasefire he recently extended, is publicly asserting that Washington now effectively controls the narrow waterway. "No ship can enter or leave without the approval of the United States Navy," he wrote in another post, calling the strait "sealed up tight" until Iran agrees to a deal. US Central Command says 31 ships have so far been ordered to turn back or return to port. Trump's post came a day after Iran's Revolutionary Guards fired on three cargo ships in the strait and captured two of them, reports the AP. On Thursday, Iranian officials said they were receiving toll payments.

Traffic through the channel—normally a route for about a fifth of the world's oil—remains dramatically reduced, with just eight ships, including three tankers, passing through on Wednesday, according to shipping data from LSEG. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliamentary speaker, said Wednesday that reopening the strait is "impossible" while the US blockade stands. A classified Pentagon briefing reportedly estimated it could take six months to fully clear the strait of mines.