WASHINGTON, June 21– U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened Iran over the Strait of Hormuz as talks between the two countries began in Switzerland. The United States “may take over the strait if we have to,” Trump told Fox News in a phone interview.
“You close it, and you won’t have a country,” Trump said he had told Iranian officials so overnight. The president did not name the Iranians with whom he spoke.
If talks with Iran fail, Washington would collect a 20 percent toll on oil transiting the crucial global energy waterway, Trump said. Roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply passed through the strait before the United States and Israel launched massive attacks on Iran on Feb. 28.
Tehran announced on Saturday that it was closing the strait over Israel’s continued strikes on Lebanon. Earlier on Sunday, Trump also warned that Iran might face similar or more intense strikes if it did not stop Hezbollah “from causing trouble.”
“Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble,” Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder.” (Namibia Daily News / Xinhua)
