‘Blown to hell’: Trump announces US blockade of Strait of Hormuz | South China Morning Post
Sunday, April 12, 2026 10:10 PM
Friends + Interlocutors,
The South China Morning Post has a short article today about Iran which captures the current state of affairs in this “self-made problem” over which Donald Trump presides.
Some experts think Trump is desperate. I do think he was desperate for a ceasefire with Iran. It is not clear why. Maybe he did not want to follow through on his insane threat to end Persian civilization with a massive war crime. That’s possible. Or perhaps Israel was running out of ammo to intercept incoming Iranian missiles. Perhaps both.
In any event, it was all a ruse to take a breather. That’s my best guess. Why else would Trump entice the Iranians by writing that their 10-point proposal would be the basis of negotiations? Those 10 points were maximalist. Trump and Israel were never going to acquiesce to any part of them. So he gets his ceasefire, and then sends VP Vance to conduct a charade in Islamabad. Shame on Vance.
Meanwhile Netanyahu continues his attempted land grab in Lebanon. There was no reason to stop it since Trump and Netanyahu knew the war was going to resume shortly. If Trump had been serious about a peace settlement, he would have told Netanyahu to halt bombing Lebanon or at least acknowledged that Lebanon was indeed part of the initial agreement.
This whole murderous enterprise was launched to benefit Israel. Period. There is nothing, nothing whatever, in it for the U.S.A.
Trump is not protecting America from Iran. There is no threat from Iran. When I hear American politicians like Trump and American commentators on Fox News or in the WSJ calling Iran a terrorist state which is sponsoring terrorism around the world and seeking a nuclear weapon to target the USA, I only wonder what other lies they could possibly come up with next.
Notice that Trump today uses the phrase, “Iran’s nuclear ambitions”. Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and is not seeking one. It has been outlawed by Ayatollah Khomeini and by his successor Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the latter murdered by Israel.
The U.S. intelligence community has confirmed for decades that Iran is not working on a nuclear weapon. Hence the phrase “nuclear ambitions”, a catchall term which the average person translates as atomic bombs. That of course is the dishonest intent. Trump is not the first one to employ it.
The bottom line is, this is entirely Trump’s War. He created the problem in his first term by acceding to Netanyahu’s demands that the US cancel for no reason whatever the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Trump followed up by joining with Netanyahu in a predatory and unprovoked, full-scale attack on Iran in his second term. All of this, totally unnecessary and crazy. We may be obliged to kiss the good life goodbye because of it. (My emphasis in red below.)
Patrick
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Developing ‘Blown to hell’: Trump announces US blockade of Strait of Hormuz
US President Donald Trump has announced a sweeping naval operation targeting the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important oil transit chokepoints, in a move that risks deepening a global crisis.
“Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,” Trump said in a social media post on Sunday.
He said that “at some point, we will reach an ‘ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO IN, ALL BEING ALLOWED TO GO OUT’ basis”, adding that he had instructed the US Navy to “seek and interdict” every vessel in international waters that had paid a toll to Iran.
“No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas. We will also begin destroying the mines the Iranians laid in the Straits. Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!”
The announcement was part of a barrage of statements issued after 21 hours of talks between the United States and Iran in Pakistan ended without an agreement.
The failure casts doubt over the future of a ceasefire that capped more than a month of intensifying conflict, triggered by joint US-Israeli strikes on Iran.
In the weeks since those strikes, Iran has hit back by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, an action that has upended global oil and gas supply chains and rattled energy markets, driving up fuel prices.
US says no agreement reached with Iran after marathon talks in Islamabad
Analysts warned on Sunday that a US-led blockade risked compounding the crisis, further constricting trade flows and amplifying economic shock waves worldwide.
Ali Vaez, of the Crisis Group, said Trump’s fresh announcement was “another policy that will end in grief”.
“The net result of some unwise decisions is negotiating over a nuclear programme that was previously contained and trying to reopen a strait that wasn’t closed,” he said on social media.
Hamidreza Azizi, of the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, said the operation could put pressure on Iran in the long term, “but the short- to mid-term effects on the US and global economy are likely to be much more significant”.
Warning that the “locked and loaded” US military would “finish up the little that is left of Iran”, Trump described Iran’s collection of tolls for crossing the strait as an “illegal act of extortion”.
“They want money and, more importantly, they want Nuclear,” he said.
While Trump noted that “most points” of a potential peace negotiations were settled, the talks in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on the weekend reached a terminal impasse over Iran’s refusal to dismantle its nuclear programme.
“There is only one thing that matters – IRAN IS UNWILLING TO GIVE UP ITS NUCLEAR AMBITIONS!” the “America first” president said.
Earlier in the day, Iran’s embassy in Austria, warned that “a blockade blocks” and urged all sides to “bend to reason”.
“[A blockade] cannot ‘open’ the Strait of Hormuz – only restrict it,” the embassy said, adding that the only way out of this “self-made problem is openness and flexibility in negotiations”.
