President Donald Trump said Thursday he has ordered the U.S. military to “shoot and kill” small Iranian boats that deploy mines to choke traffic through the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump´s post on social media came shortly after the U.S. military seized another tanker associated with the smuggling of Iranian oil, ratcheting up a standoff with Tehran over the strait through which 20% of all crude oil and natural gas traded passes.
“I have ordered the United States Navy to shoot and kill any boat, small boats though they may be…that is putting mines in the waters of the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump posted. “There is to be no hesitation. 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 added.
He also said the military is intensifying mine clearing operations in the critical waterway.
The move comes a day after Iran´s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards attacked three cargo ships in the strait, capturing two of them.
The Defense Department released video footage earlier on Thursday of U.S. forces on the deck of the Guinea-flagged oil tanker Majestic X, which was seized in the Indian Ocean.
“We will continue global maritime enforcement to disrupt illicit networks and interdict vessels providing material support to Iran, wherever they operate,” a Pentagon statement said.
Ship-tracking data showed the Majestic X in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia, roughly the same location as the oil tanker Tifani, earlier seized by American forces. It had been bound for Zhoushan, China.
The vessel previously had been named Phonix and had been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2024 for smuggling Iranian crude oil in contravention of U.S. sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
There was no immediate response from Iran on the news of the seizure.
On Tuesday, Trump extended a ceasefire while maintaining an American blockade of Iranian ports. There was no immediate sign whether peace talks, previously hosted by Pakistan, would resume anytime soon.
The standoff between the US and Iran has effectively choked off nearly all exports through the strait with no end in sight.
Meanwhile, Pentagon assessment has said it could take six months to completely clear the Strait of Hormuz of Iranian-laid mines, which could keep oil prices high, the Washington Post reported, according to AFP.
The assessment added that it was unlikely such an operation would begin before the end of the war.
Moreover, Iran has banked the first proceeds from the tolls it is exacting on shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a senior official said Thursday, as disruption triggered by the US-Israeli war against the Islamic republic continued to batter the world economy.
With planned peace talks hanging in the balance, more fuel-hungry airlines cancelled flights, oil prices opened higher and the keenly-watched S&P Global PMI index showed eurozone business activity shrinking for the first time in 16 months.
Iran vowed it will keep the strait closed to all but a trickle of approved vessels for as long as the United States blockades its ports, brushing off demands from President Donald Trump that it buckle to US threats and both reopen Hormuz and surrender its enriched uranium.
“A complete ceasefire only has meaning if it is not violated through a naval blockade,” said Iran’s parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who led Tehran’s delegation at a first round of talks. “Reopening the Strait of Hormuz is not possible amid a blatant violation of the ceasefire.”
Ghalibaf’s deputy, Hamidrez Hajibabei said Iran has received its first revenue from tolls it is imposing on ships seeking to cross Hormuz, a route that in peacetime accounts for a fifth of the world’s oil and gas flows, and other vital commodities.
Separately, The New York Times reported on Thursday that Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was seriously wounded in the US-Israeli airstrike that killed his father and predecessor Ali Khamenei but is mentally sharp
Citing several Iranian officials which it did not name, the Times said Mojtaba Khamenei had “at least for now” delegated decision-making to generals in the Revolutionary Guards ideological army.
Mojtaba Khamenei has not appeared in public since succeeding his father and only issued written statements, creating speculation over his condition and if he is still alive.
Although Mojtaba Khamenei was “gravely wounded (in the February 28 airstrike), he is mentally sharp and engaged,” said the NYT.