// truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump
U.S. President Donald Trump issued a demand to Iran: the Hormuz Strait must be unblocked within 48 hours, otherwise he threatens to destroy the country's energy infrastructure.
“If Iran does not ensure the complete opening of the Hormuz Strait without threats within the next 48 hours, the U.S. will strike and destroy various power plants in the country, starting with the largest,” Trump stated on his Truth Social account at 0:44 Central European Time on March 22.
Immediately following these threats, Iranian military officials responded. In a statement from the IRGC published by the Iranian state agency Fars, it was claimed: “If enemy forces attack Iran's oil and energy infrastructure, all energy, IT, and desalination facilities of the U.S. and its allies in the region will become targets for retaliation.”
About an hour before the ultimatum, Trump reacted to an article by David Sanger in The New York Times, which claimed that the U.S. president had not achieved significant military successes in Iran. “In fact, I achieved my goals much earlier than expected! Their leadership is destroyed, the navy and air force are defeated, and they have no defense; they want to make a deal, but I do not!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, also calling Sanger a “miserable” analyst and the newspaper a “failure.”
Since the beginning of the conflict between the U.S. and Israel against Iran, the Hormuz Strait, which is a crucial route for 20% of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, has effectively been under the control of Iranian forces. Iran has also been attacking oil facilities in several Gulf countries and tankers, which has already led to a sharp increase in energy prices. In this situation, Trump criticized his NATO allies, describing them as “cowards” and calling for more active measures to protect the strait.
If the blockage of the Hormuz Strait lasts until the end of June, global economic growth in the second quarter could decrease by 2.9 percentage points on an annual basis, specialists from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas claim. If the strait remains closed for three quarters of this year, analysts predict that the price of a barrel of oil could reach $132 by the end of the year.
Since February 28, the U.S. and Israel have been conducting airstrikes on Iran, resulting in the elimination of the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several high-ranking officials. In response, Iran has been attacking neighboring states in the Gulf using missiles and drones, claiming that the targets of these attacks are U.S. military bases. Additionally, Iranian strikes have affected oil storage facilities and tankers in several countries in the region.
