President Trump on Saturday night gave Iran a 48-hour deadline to reopen the Strait of Hormuz or else the U.S. will start destroying Iranian power plants.
Why it matters: The threat marks a dramatic reversal from just a day earlier when Trump floated ending the war without reopening the strait, signaling the Hormuz crisis has become the issue he can't walk away from, even as he looks for an exit.
Friction point: On Friday afternoon, a little more than 24 hours before Trump's new threat, the president said he was considering "winding down" the war without resolving the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
- If he does walk away without reopening the strait, the U.S. would be leaving other countries to clean up an economic quagmire.
- Roughly one-fifth of the world's oil depends on the Strait of Hormuz. With it choked off, the U.S. national average for a gallon of gas hit $3.94 Sunday morning, according to AAA, up more than a dollar from a month earlier.
What he is saying: "If Iran doesn't FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The other side: Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the country's top civilian leaders, responded with a threat of his own.
- "Immediately after the targeting of power plants and infrastructure in our country, vital infrastructure and energy and oil facilities across the region will be considered legitimate targets and will be destroyed irreversibly, and oil prices will rise for a long time," he wrote on X.
