Trump, Iran Step Up Threats Over Energy Targets As War Escalates

U.S. President Donald Trump and Iran threatened to escalate their war by attacking energy facilities in the Gulf, a potential widening of hostilities that could deepen a regional crisis and add to concerns in global markets.

Trump on Saturday threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s power plants if Tehran did not fully reopen the Strait of Hormuz within 48 hours, suggesting a significant escalation barely a day after he talked about “winding down” the war, now in its fourth week.

Iran said on Sunday it would attack U.S. infrastructure, including energy facilities in the Gulf, if Trump carried out his threat, which he made as U.S. Marines and heavy landing craft continued to head to the region.

Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf wrote on X that critical infrastructure and energy facilities in the Middle East could be “irreversibly destroyed” should Iranian power plants be attacked.

More than 2,000 people have been killed during the war the U.S. and Israel launched on February 28, which has upended markets, spiked fuel costs, fuelled global inflation fears and convulsed the postwar Western alliance.

“President Trump’s ⁠threat has now placed a 48-hour ticking time bomb of elevated uncertainty over markets,” said IG market analyst Tony Sycamore, who expects stock markets to fall on Monday as energy supplies remain strained.

Iranian attacks have effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow choke point that carries around a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies, causing the worst oil crisis since the 1970s. Its near-closure sent European gas prices surging as much as 35% last week.

“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 posted on social media around 7:45 p.m. EDT (2345 GMT) on Saturday.

The Strait of Hormuz remains open to all shipping except vessels linked to “Iran’s enemies”, the country’s representative to the International Maritime Organisation was quoted as saying in Iranian media reports published on Sunday.

Ship-tracking data has shown some vessels, such as Indian-flagged ships and a ‌Pakistani oil tanker, ⁠have negotiated safe passage through the strait. Pakistan has good ties with Iran while keeping close relations with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya military command headquarters said on Sunday if the U.S. hit Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure, Iran would launch attacks on all U.S. energy, information technology and desalination infrastructure in the region.

The Islamic republic’s power grid is deeply intertwined with its energy sector. Striking major plants could trigger blackouts, crippling everything from pumps and refineries to export terminals and military command centres.

While some Gulf desert states such as Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE have access to more than one sea to draw water from for desalination, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait are crowded along the shoreline of the Gulf with no other coastline.

Tehran fired long-range missiles for the first time on Saturday, expanding the risk of attacks ⁠beyond the Middle East, while an Iranian strike landed near Israel’s secretive nuclear reactor about 13 km (8 miles) southeast of the city of Dimona.

The fighting in the Gulf has been taking place alongside a confrontation on a separate front between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, backed by Iran, with the Israeli military saying on Sunday its troops had raided a number of the armed group’s sites in southern Lebanon.

Israel said it had instructed the military to accelerate the demolition of Lebanese homes in “frontline villages” to end threats to Israeli communities, and to destroy ⁠all bridges over Lebanon’s Litani river which it said were used for “terrorist activity”.