Trump issues chilling red-line threat as Iran opens new front and oil prices go haywire

Donald Trump has vowed to bomb an Iranian bridge or power plant every time Tehran fires on a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, in an extraordinary red-line threat ratcheting pressure on the regime as the crisis in the Middle East spirals.

The President laid down the ultimatum on Wednesday, warning the strikes could land on the Iranian capital, as oil prices spiked to their highest level in more than a month.

‘Any time Iran shoots at a ship in the Strait of Hormuz, whether it be by Missile, Rocket, Drone, or any other weapon, the United States will bomb and destroy ONE BRIDGE OR POWER PLANT,’ he wrote on Truth Social.

Strikes on civilian infrastructure can amount to a war crime under international law, military and legal experts have cautioned.

The threat capped an eleventh straight night of American bombing, with fresh raids pounding command centers, drone stores, aircraft hangars and maritime targets, US Central Command said.

Iran has all but strangled the channel that once carried a fifth of the world’s oil, hammering tankers with drones and missiles and sending global markets into a tailspin.

Iran’s Houthi allies in Yemen have torn open a second front this week, declaring a blockade on Saudi shipping through the Red Sea and threatening one of the last escape routes for Gulf oil.

The twin threat drove crude above $95 per barrel and forced two of the world’s biggest shipping giants, CMA CGM and Maersk, to slap emergency fuel surcharges on customers.

Donald Trump salutes during a dignified transfer solemn event for US service members killed during operations in the Middle East, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, on July 22

A satellite view shows tunnel entrances at Pickaxe Mountain, of the Natanz nuclear facility, near Natanz, Iran, June 30

Three American soldiers were killed over the weekend when Iranian missiles tore into their living quarters at a base in Jordan, and a fourth died in Iraq during a controlled demolition of a downed Iranian drone. It brings the American death toll to 18.

Trump vowed revenge, writing: ‘Every time Iran kills an American Soldier they will pay for that killing many times over!’

The President’s sights are now trained on Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified underground complex near Natanz where Israeli intelligence believes Iran has hidden its nuclear enrichment centrifuges.

Trump said US forces would hit the site ‘pretty soon, and very heavily’, adding of the Iranians: ‘There‘s not a thing they can do about it.’

The bunker is buried so deep that weapons experts doubt even America’s most fearsome bunker-busters could reach the centrifuges, forcing the US to consider sealing the tunnels instead.

US and Israeli forces flattened Iran’s three main nuclear sites during last year’s 12-day war, dropping 30,000lb bunker-busters in a blitz Trump branded a historic success.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tehran was not negotiating in good faith, telling reporters in Manila: ‘The problem we’re having right now is that they’re not serious about talks.’

Trump has dispatched additional F-16 and F-35 fighter jets into the region from European bases and taken fresh battle options from his military chiefs, in a sign the conflict is poised to escalate.

Karoline Leavitt joins Trump at the dignified transfer at Dover on Wednesday

Members of the military pay their respects to the remains of U.S. Army service members Army 1st Lt. Tyler James Feehan, Sgt. Angel S. Rampersad and Pvt. Isabella Gonzales, who were killed in an attack on Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, and Sgt. Michael Emmanuel Swinton, who was killed during a controlled detonation of a downed one-way unmanned aerial system at Erbil Air Base in Iraq

Trump walks by his Executive assistant Natalie Harp as they attend a dignified transfer

Members of the military carry the transfer case to the transport van during a dignified transfer

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Dan Caine told senators during a hearing Tuesday that airpower alone could not bring Iran to heel.

‘As you look across the totality of history, airpower’s got limits, and we always have to be mindful of those,’ Caine testified.

Caine was appearing alongside Secretary of War Pete Hegseth as the Pentagon requests an additional $67 billion in emergency funding from Congress to fund the war, on top of $37 billion already spent.