Iranians walk past portraits of victims reportedly killed in a U.S.-Israeli airstrike on the residential building near which they are displayed, in Tehran, on Monday.-/AFP/Getty Images
The Iranian government openly mocked Donald Trump’s inability to resolve the global oil shortage triggered by his failed attempt to overthrow the authoritarian theocracy in Tehran as the U.S. President imposed his own blockade Monday of the Strait of Hormuz.
Mr. Trump, meanwhile, resorted to a mix of optimistic pronouncements and bellicose threats as he cast about for a way to end the war he started six weeks ago.
On the President’s orders, the blockade began Monday on Iranian ports in the Persian Gulf, an attempt to increase pressure on Tehran after the U.S. walked away from peace negotiations mediated by Pakistan this past weekend.
The U.S. action, combined with Iran’s weeks-long blockade of ships from Gulf Arab states, has effectively shut down all maritime traffic through the strait, threatening to further restrict the world’s supplies of petroleum, natural gas and fertilizer.
At the White House Monday, Mr. Trump insisted that Iran wants to “make a deal very badly, very badly” but did not suggest when talks might resume.
“We’ve been called this morning by the right people, the appropriate people, and they want to work a deal,” he said.
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If Iran does not agree to a deal before the end of the ceasefire next week, Mr. Trump said, it “won’t be pleasant for them.” Earlier in the day on Truth Social, he said that if Iranian attack boats “come anywhere close to our BLOCKADE, they will be immediately ELIMINATED.”
Iran fired back in the war of words by repeatedly needling the U.S. about the 30-per-cent jump in gasoline prices since the war began.
“Enjoy the current pump figures. With the so-called ‘blockade,’ soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4—$5 gas,” wrote Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Iranian parliament who led his country’s delegation at the peace talks, on X, over a Google Maps display of prices at gas stations around Washington, DC.
The Iranian embassy in Thailand reposted a fake campaign poster for the President labelled “Trump $20.28 per gallon,” riffing on both fossil fuel prices and Mr. Trump’s musings about running for an unconstitutional third term in 2028.
“Blocking the Strait is our job, not yours,” chimed in Tehran’s diplomatic mission in Zimbabwe.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian sought to make hay out of Mr. Trump’s feud with Pope Leo XIV. Mr. Pezeshkian condemned Mr. Trump’s insult of Leo – whom Mr. Trump accused of being “Weak on Crime” and “Weak on Nuclear Weapons” because the pontiff has defended the rights of immigrants and spoken out against war – and the U.S. President’s posting of an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ ministering to a sick man.
“The desecration of Jesus, the prophet of peace and brotherhood, is not acceptable to any free person,” Mr. Pezeshkian wrote.
Mr. Trump deleted the image, which had also provoked a backlash among religious Americans. On Monday, he insisted that the portrayal of himself in white robes, holding a glowing orb of light, had not been intended to portray him as Christ but rather as a Red Cross doctor.
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The President’s efforts to get other countries to join the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran also took a blow Monday as Britain and France announced unspecified plans for a “peaceful” mission to reopen the strait. “We’re not supporting the blockade,” British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told the BBC.
Mr. Trump said Monday that the sticking point in talks was Iran’s nuclear program. The U.S. has demanded that Tehran turn over all its enriched uranium and not enrich any more.
“I think they will agree to it,” he said. “If they don’t agree, there’s no deal.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. State Department official and Middle East expert, said it was a sign of how poorly the war has gone for Mr. Trump that his primary aim is now to reopen an international waterway that was open before the war.
“If the war stopped tomorrow, this would constitute a strategic defeat for the U.S. The Iranian regime has not only survived, it has become more hardline. You don’t see any protests in the streets,” he said. “And Iran has now put its hand on the strait, which it didn’t touch before.”