US President Donald Trump on Friday blamed Iran for attacks on oil tankers near the strategic Strait of Hormuz, but he also held out hope that implicit US threats to use force would yield talks with the Islamic Republic as the Pentagon considers beefing up defenses in the Persian Gulf area.
A day after explosions blew holes in two oil tankers just outside Iran’s territorial waters, rattling international oil markets, the Trump administration seemed caught between pressure to punish Iran and reassuring Washington’s Arab allies without drawing the US closer to war.
“Iran did it,” Trump said on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends.
He did not offer evidence, but the US military has released a video it said showed the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps removing an unexploded mine from one of the oil tankers targeted near the Strait of Hormuz, suggesting that Tehran wanted to cover its tracks.
By pointing the finger at Iran, Trump was keeping a public spotlight on an adversary he accuses of terrorism, but has also invited to negotiate. The approach is similar to his diplomacy with North Korea, which has quieted talk of war, but not yet achieved his goal of nuclear disarmament.
Iran has shown little sign of backing down, creating uncertainty about how far the Trump administration can go with its campaign of increasing pressure through sanctions.
Iran denied any involvement in the attacks and accused Washington of waging an “Iranophobic campaign” of economic warfare.
A US Navy team was on Friday collecting forensic evidence aboard one of the tankers, the Japanese-owned Kokuka Courageous, said a US official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Apparently alluding to the US video, Trump said that Iran’s culpability had been “exposed.”
He did not say what he intended to do about it, but suggested that “very tough” US sanctions, including efforts to strangle Iranian oil revenue, would have the desired effect.
“They’ve been told in very strong terms we want to get them back to the table,” Trump said.
Just a day earlier, the president took the opposite view, saying on Twitter that it was “too soon to even think about making a deal” with Iran’s leaders.
“They are not ready, and neither are we,” he said on Twitter.
Last month, the US ended waivers that allowed some countries to continue buying Iranian oil, a move that is starving Iran of oil income and that coincided with what US officials called a surge in intelligence pointing to Iranian preparations for attacks against US forces and interests in the Persian Gulf region.
In response to those intelligence warnings, the US on May 5 announced that it was accelerating the deployment of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier battle group to the region.
It also sent four nuclear-capable strategic bombers to Qatar and has beefed up its defenses in the region by deploying more Patriot air-defense systems.
Pentagon deliberations about possibly sending more military resources to the region, including more Patriot missile batteries, could be accelerated by Thursday’s dramatic attack on the oil tankers, officials said.
At the Pentagon, Acting US Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan said that Iran is not just a US problem.
The US’ goal is to “build international consensus to this international problem,” and to ensure that US military commanders in the region get the resources and support they need, he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese