The US will not be blackmailed by Iran, Donald Trump has declared, after Iranian gunboats attacked cargo ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
Tehran closed the vital oil passage on Saturday morning in response to a continuing US blockade of its ports, just hours after agreeing to reopen it.
Two Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vessels opened fire on the ships 23 miles north-east of Oman, without warning their crews, according to the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre.
“They wanted to close up the strait again, as they’ve been doing for years. But they can’t blackmail us,” Mr Trump said on Saturday. The day before, he claimed the waterway would “no longer be used as a weapon against the world”.
Tehran said any vessels that approached the strait from Saturday evening would be considered “enemy” and would be targeted.
The US military has drawn up its own plans to board and seize Iranian-linked ships in the coming days, strengthening its economic stranglehold on Tehran in an attempt to force a reopening of the strait, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The escalation threatens to derail ongoing peace efforts before the current ceasefire expires on Wednesday.
Mr Trump convened a White House Situation Room meeting with top officials on Saturday, after the gunfire.
It included JD Vance, the US vice-president, who is expected to join the next round of negotiations with Iran; Marco Rubio, the secretary of state; Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary; and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary.
Iran announced the reopening of the strait in a surprise move on Friday, but the plan quickly fell apart amid disagreements with Washington over the new terms.
Mr Trump said the American naval blockade of ships using Iranian ports would continue until a permanent deal was signed, which Tehran claimed violated the terms of their ceasefire.
At least eight tankers sailed through the conduit while it was open on Saturday morning, but after its closure, nearly every tanker heading out of the Gulf was forced to turn around by the Iranian navy, according to vessel-tracking data.
Two vessels attacked while attempting to transit the strait were Indian-flagged, according to the Indian government, which responded by summoning the Iranian ambassador. One of the tankers was struck, but no injuries were reported from either crew.
In an audio recording of radio transmissions between the Indian and Iranian ships a crew member on one of the Indian-flagged vessels can be heard insisting that clearance had been granted to pass through the strait before the attack began.
A US security official told Axios that the IRGC had attacked a third commercial ship in the waterway since reimposing restrictions.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Mr Trump said Tehran had “got a little cute” but insisted, despite the closure of the strait, that “very good conversations” were taking place.
Touting the US military’s success in the war against Iran, he continued: “Nobody ever took them on. We took them on. They have no navy, they have no air force, they have no leaders. They have no nothing.
“They wanted to close up the strait again, as they’ve been doing for years. But they can’t blackmail us.”
Mr Trump had claimed on Friday that a deal would probably be agreed “in a day or two”, but further talks this weekend now appear virtually impossible. A senior American official told Axios the war would resume in the coming days without a breakthrough in negotiations.
A top Iranian official said on Saturday that there was no date set for the next round of peace talks.
Saeed Khatibzadeh, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Turkey: “Until we agree on the framework, we cannot… set the date.”
Signalling the distance between the two sides, he urged the US to abandon its “maximalist position”, while calling Mr Trump “confusing” and “contradictory”.
A peace deal has foundered on Iran abandoning its nuclear ambitions. Mr Trump claimed on Friday that Tehran had agreed to indefinitely suspend its nuclear programme, which the regime swiftly denied.
Iran’s national security council said on Saturday it was reviewing new peace proposals from Washington, while maintaining it would keep a tight grip on the Strait of Hormuz until the end of the war.
In a rare statement later on Saturday, Mojtaba Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed to make the US “taste the bitterness of new defeats”.
Mr Khamenei, who has not been seen publicly since the start of the war and is rumoured to have been badly injured, claimed Iranian forces had already exposed the “weakness and humiliation” of the US and Israel to the world.
“Just as its drones strike like lightning upon the American and Zionist aggressors, its valiant navy is ready to make the enemies taste the bitterness of new defeats,” he said.
The US and Iran appeared to be inching towards peace after Israel agreed to include Lebanon within the ceasefire agreement on Thursday, followed by the short-lived unblocking of the Strait of Hormuz on Friday.
Now the truce appears to be fracturing after Israel on Saturday launched two attacks on Hezbollah, accusing the Iranian proxy group of violating their agreement.
On Saturday, a French United Nations peacekeeper was killed and three others injured in a separate attack thought to have been carried out by Hezbollah.
Emmanuel Macron, the French president, said “everything points to Hezbollah being responsible” for the assault and urged authorities in Lebanon to “immediately arrest the perpetrators”.
Nawaf Salam, Lebanon’s prime minister, said he had ordered an “immediate investigation” into the incident.