WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) – President Donald Trump https://www.reuters.com/world/us/donald-trump/ warned on Monday that any Iranian “fast-attack” ships that go near a U.S. maritime “blockade” on Iran would be eliminated, and he said the U.S. would not allow Tehran to “extort the world.”
Trump said a U.S. blockade on vessels entering and departing Iran had gone into effect at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) on Monday.
Describing Iran’s navy as “completely obliterated” during the six-week-long war between the U.S. and Iran, Trump had earlier posted on Truth Social: “What we have not hit are their small number of, what they call, ‘fast attack ships,’ because we did not consider them much of a threat.”
“Warning: If any of these ships come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED, using the same system of kill that we use against the drug dealers on boats at Sea. It is quick and brutal,” Trump wrote.
Trump was referring to the dozens of U.S. strikes carried out against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific since September in a campaign that has killed at least 110 people.
Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off a vital waterway that normally carries about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, in response to U.S.-Israeli strikes https://www.reuters.com/world/iran/.
“We can’t let a country blackmail or extort the world,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
Iran’s conventional navy has largely been destroyed. However, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps still has options to disrupt maritime activity, including fast-attack craft, mini submarines, mines and even jet skis packed with explosives, said Tom Sharpe, a retired Royal Navy commander, last month.
After agreeing to a two-week ceasefire that began last week, the U.S. and Iran held talks in Pakistan over the weekend aimed at a settlement to the conflict. But they failed to reach an agreement.
A U.S. official said on Monday that there was continued engagement between the U.S. and Iran and forward motion toward an agreement.
Trump told reporters that the U.S. is determined to curtail Iran’s nuclear ambitions and retrieve its fissile material, deal or not.
“If they don’t agree, there’s no deal. There’ll never be a deal. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon, and we’re going to get the dust back. We’ll get it back. Either we’ll get it back from them, or we’ll take it.”
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu, Trevor Hunnicutt and Humeyra Pamuk; editing by Michelle Nichols and Cynthia Osterman)
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