President Donald Trump downplayed feeling any pressure to quickly wrap up the conflict in Iran on Thursday, even as peace talks look uncertain and global gas prices remain stubbornly high.
"For those people, fewer in number now than ever before, that are reading The Failing New York Times, or watching Fake News CNN, that think that I am 'anxious' to end the War (if you would even call it that!) with Iran, please be advised that I am possibly the least pressured person ever to be in this position," he wrote on Truth Social Thursday. "I have all the time in the World, but Iran doesn’t — The clock is ticking!"
Trump's open-ended timeline comes as the war with Iran — which right now sees little active conflict amid a ceasefire Trump extended indefinitely earlier this week — approaches two months, with no clear end date.
At hearings on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, Cabinet officials largely avoided giving timelines for when energy prices will come down, and some Republican lawmakers quietly say the 60-day mark for the conflict could be a turning point in their continued support.
Central to the conflict's future is the Strait of Hormuz, the waterway through which roughly 20 percent of the world's oil travels through. As American warships embark on the time-consuming task of locating bombs in the strait and clearing it for commercial shipping, Trump called on the U.S. Navy earlier Thursday to "shoot and kill" Iranian boats still placing mines in the waterway.
His statement comes amid bubbling concerns it could take months to root out all the mines in the strait.
Trump did not directly address how long it will take to clear the waterway, but urged the Navy to target any remaining boats still placing mines.
“There is to be no hesitation,” he wrote in an earlier social media post. “Additionally, our mine ‘sweepers’ are clearing the Strait right now. I am hereby ordering that activity to continue, but at a tripled up level!”
The president on Tuesday extended a shaky ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran but said he’d continue an American blockade on Iranian shipping in the strait.
Iran slowed traffic on the waterway to a mere trickle in the weeks after the U.S. and Israel launched a joint operation against Tehran in February. It sent oil prices skyrocketing.
The U.S. blockade has strained relations even more, with Tehran now halting peace negotiations until it lifts.
Asked in the Oval Office on Thursday if Americans should anticipate the ongoing conflict will keep gas prices elevated, Trump said they would be higher "for a little while," but indicated any price hikes would be worth it.
"You know what they get for that? Iran without a nuclear weapon," he said.
Further talks have not yet been scheduled, but Trump said earlier this week that it was “possible” that talks picked back up this weekend.
Experts worry that if a vessel were damaged or destroyed by a mine in the waterway, it would only further choke off trade.
The White House has taken pains to play down the threat of Iran’s boats on the strait in recent days, especially after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps seized two foreign vessels in the waterway Wednesday. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted the seizures did not constitute a violation of the ceasefire and said it was evidence that the U.S. military campaign was working.
“And for the American media who is sort of blowing this out of proportion to discredit the president’s facts — that he has completely obliterated Iran’s conventional Navy — these two ships were taken by speedy gunboats,” she said. “Iran has gone from having the most lethal Navy in the Middle East to now acting like a bunch of pirates.”
In recent weeks, Trump too has boasted about the effect of U.S. attacks on the state of Iran's military force.
"Iran’s Navy is lying at the bottom of the Sea, their Air Force is demolished, their Anti Aircraft and Radar Weaponry is gone, their leaders are no longer with us, the Blockade is airtight and strong and, from there, it only gets worse — Time is not on their side!" he wrote on Thursday.
Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.
