Trump threatens to destroy Iran's power plants unless it opens the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours

US President Donald Trump gave Iran a 48-hour ultimatum on Saturday evening (overnight into Sunday CET) to fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz, warning that otherwise the United States would begin destroying Iranian power plants, "starting with the biggest one". Trump announced the move in a post on his social media platform. Reuters called it a dramatic escalation in a conflict now more than three weeks old, and said carrying out the threat would affect the everyday lives of ordinary Iranians.

With oil and natural gas prices rising sharply, the White House chief is facing mounting pressure to ensure safe passage through the key shipping route, which before the current war in the Persian Gulf carried around a fifth of global supplies of these commodities. Traffic through the strait has virtually stopped since early March because of threats from Iran.

"If Iran does not fully open, without threats, the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours from this exact point in time, the United States will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE!" Trump wrote on Truth Social in a post peppered with capital letters, which the AP said he published during a weekend stay in Florida.

Among Iran's largest power plants, according to Reuters data drawn from industry and energy databases, are the 2868-megawatt Damavand plant on Tehran's eastern outskirts, the Kerman plant in the southeast of the country (1910 MW), and the Ramin steam power plant in the southern province of Khuzestan (1890 MW). Iran's only nuclear power plant, at Bushehr on the Persian Gulf coast, has a capacity of about 1000 MW.

An Iranian military spokesperson responded to Trump's ultimatum by saying that if the United States attacked Iran's fuel and energy infrastructure, Iran would target all energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure "belonging to the United States and the regime in the region" in its retaliatory strikes. He did not specify which "regime" he meant.

In retaliation for US-Israeli strikes launched on February 28, Tehran and its allies have mainly used drones and ballistic missiles to attack not only Israel and US military sites in the Middle East, but also civilian targets and, in particular, oil and gas infrastructure in neighboring Arab countries. Iranian threats and several attacks on tankers in the area have also brought shipping through the Strait of Hormuz almost to a halt.

The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency said overnight that it had received a report of an unknown projectile exploding very close to a cargo ship sailing 15 nautical miles (27 kilometers) north of the port of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, not far from the Strait of Hormuz. The vessel's crew are safe following the incident, according to UKMTO.

Reuters said Trump's Saturday ultimatum marked another dramatic turn by the president in a conflict now more than three weeks old. Just a day earlier, Trump had said the United States was close to achieving all its objectives in the war against Iran and was considering scaling back military operations in the Middle East. In a post on Friday, he also wrote that the Strait of Hormuz should be guarded by the countries that use it, which, in his view, does not include the United States.

In recent days, Trump has also asked European NATO members and other countries to help secure the strait. After they declined to get involved, he called them cowards. European countries have argued, among other things, that they are not participating in the war and that the United States, their NATO ally, did not consult them before launching the strikes in February.

Trump had previously raised the idea of destroying Iran's electricity grid, though he also played it down, Reuters noted. "We could take out their electric capacity in one hour, and it would take them 25 years to rebuild it," Trump told reporters on March 11. "So ideally, we won't do that," he added.