US President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the US will maintain its blockade of Iranian ports, while Iran reiterated that the waterway would stay closed until its demands are met.

“The U.S.A. has total control over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it.”

“They have no Navy, they have no Air Force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] is decimated and fleeing, and their ‘Leadership’ is uncertain, at best! They have No Money – Their country is ‘shot,’” Trump wrote.

“All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the Bully of the Middle East No Longer,” Trump wrote. “Praise be to Allah!”

Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority – created by the Islamic Republic in May to control shipping through Hormuz – wrote on X: “Claims and repeated posts by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted.”

Trump has taken to insulting Iran’s leaders of late, after calling them much more reasonable than previous leaders less than two months ago, when he signed a memorandum of understanding with Tehran that was supposed to permanently end the war between the two countries and reopen the strait.

The US president is reportedly leaning toward declaring victory over Iran, without securing a deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program as he seeks to disengage from the issue.

But disengaging while maintaining the blockade is likely to keep global gas prices up, while potentially inviting additional Iranian strikes at its neighbors that have destabilized the region.

Pakistan’s interior minister was........

© The Times of Israel