Trump declares US ‘Guardian of the Hormuz Strait’ as strikes escalate and oil jumps

Washington President Donald Trump said the United States would be known as the “Guardian of the Hormuz Strait” as military exchanges with Iran escalated and oil prices climbed, the AFP reported.

US launches further strikes as Trump vows blockade

The United States carried out a third consecutive night of strikes on Iran while Mr Trump said Washington planned to reimpose a blockade on Iranian ports and was considering a 20 percent fee on cargo passing through the Strait of Hormuz. “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight, and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

The US military said a five-hour mission struck targets across Iran, including coastal Bushehr and Bandar Abbas, to “degrade Iran’s ability to attack commercial shipping,” according to AFP reporting.

Retaliation and wider regional strikes

AFP reported that Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had fired missiles and drones on Bahrain and that they had struck other Gulf states, with Tehran saying it targeted US forces at an air base and urging one country to demand the removal of what it called “occupying American bases from the region.”

The report said Tehran launched attacks on other US allies in the region, and Jordan said it had shot down four missiles it said came from Iran.

Blockade and toll announcement

Mr Trump declared on the Truth platform that the United States would be “known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT'” and said it would levy a 20 percent fee on all cargo shipped through the waterway. US Central Command (CENTCOM) announced that Iran’s ports on the waterway would be blockaded from 2000 GMT on Tuesday.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi responded on X that Trump was “absolutely right” that whoever guarantees safe passage should be compensated, but said Tehran would charge less. He called “20% is of course too much,” in the post quoted by AFP.

Market reaction and diplomacy

Oil prices shot up more than nine percent on Monday amid fears of renewed conflict and rose again on Tuesday, the AFP reported. Brent crude was trading at $83 per barrel on Tuesday morning, according to the story.

Despite the strikes and threats, Mr Trump said a deal with Tehran remained possible. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told AFP that the June memorandum of understanding that underpinned recent negotiations was “in crisis” and said Iran would ignore its obligations under the deal if the US did the same, while continuing talks with mediators from Qatar, Pakistan and Oman.

Escalation and US authority to operate

The White House confirmed to AFP that Mr Trump had formally notified Congress last week that the United States had resumed military conflict against Iran, a move that gives the Pentagon an additional 60 days to operate in the region without fresh congressional approval.

Mr Trump also threatened to destroy a deeply buried site near Natanz, saying on conservative radio that “Tell the Iranians to be ready. Let them know we’re coming (and) there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.”

Analyst view

Bader Al-Saif, an associate fellow at Chatham House, told AFP that the rising scale of attacks would likely delay a permanent agreement, saying: “Both sides want to end the impasse on their own terms, and they are increasingly finding it difficult to do so. Hence the return to and increase in the scale of attacks.”