U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Wednesday to destroy an Iranian bridge or power plant every time Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
Five tankers changed course in the Red Sea to avoid the Bab el-Mandeb Strait on Wednesday, a day after the Houthis’ threat to block Saudi oil exports highlighted a new risk to global oil supplies from the escalating conflict.
Three tankers loaded with Saudi oil for China and India made U-turns on Tuesday.
In response to Trump’s threat to Iran’s infrastructure, an Iranian military source cited by Tasnim news agency said Tehran would retaliate against infrastructure in the region.
“If our security is not ensured, no infrastructure will be safe… We have said many times that the situation in the strait will not return to the way it was before the war,” Iran’s top negotiator Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf said on X.
Iran’s near-total blockade of the Strait of Hormuz in the Gulf has stoked inflation around the world, and the new risk to shipping from the Houthis, who control areas near the Bab el-Mandeb strait, pushed oil prices to a near six-week high.
U.S. gasoline prices, which have weighed on Trump’s poll ratings ahead of midterm elections in November, have climbed back over $4 a gallon.
Millions of barrels of Saudi oil per day have been heading to the kingdom’s Red Sea port of Yanbu to avoid the Strait of Hormuz.
If shipments cannot pass through the Red Sea’s southern Bab el-Mandeb Strait, they have only the northern route out via the Suez Canal, which adds weeks to the journey and significantly raises freight and transit costs. —Reuters
