Trump Threatens to Destroy Iranian Boats Mining Strait of Hormuz

US President Donald Trump is threatening to destroy the small boats that the Iranians are using to mine the Strait of Hormuz. This is coming after such small boats were used by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard to seize two cargo ships passing through the strait. That strait in peacetime sees about 20% of all crude oil and natural gas pass through it, but since the Americans and the Israelis launched this war on Iran back in February, Tehran has maintained a chokehold on that international waterway. Now, Trump's threat comes as US forces also seized a second oil tanker associated with Iran's oil trade out in the Indian Ocean between Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Now, this ship had been previously sanctioned by the US

Treasury over being part of what's known as the Iranian shadow fleet, which is bringing that sanctioned crude oil out of Iran and into Asian markets, particularly into China. Iran has not responded to either Trump's threat or this latest seizure, but Iran has insisted that it will maintain the closure on the Strait of Hormuz. Now, all this is coming as ceasefire negotiations between the United States and Iran were supposed to happen this week, but failed to materialize. Iran insists that it will not attend any ceasefire talks until the United States ends its blockade on Iranian ports targeting Iranian ships, and for its

part America insists that it will not attend any peace talks until Iran opens up the Strait of Hormuz to international traffic. So, all this together it really has drawn questions about whether we'll see any negotiators back at the table anytime soon in Pakistan's capital Islamabad. But, as these attacks at sea continue, that's really put this ceasefire under new strains and drawn question into whether or not we could see a return to active combat.