Donald Trump has urged the UK and other countries to send warships to the Strait of Hormuz to help secure the key shipping route out of the Middle East.
The US president said he hoped China, France, Japan and South Korea would also send ships to the passage, where several tankers are reported to have been attacked since the US and Israel mounted their war against Iran a fortnight ago.
Responding to Trump’s comments, the UK Ministry of Defence said it was discussing “a range of options to ensure the security of shipping in the region” with allies.
Tehran has said it will continue blocking the strait – the world’s busiest oil shipping channel, through which about 20% of global oil supplies usually pass.
Its effective closure, along with strikes on shipping and energy infrastructure since the war began, has caused a large rise in global oil prices.
Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday that “many countries” would send warships alongside the US to help keep the strait “open and safe.”
He claimed “100% of Iran’s military capability” had already been destroyed, but said Tehran could still “send a drone or two, drop a mine, or deliver a close-range missile somewhere along, or in, this waterway.”
“Hopefully China, France, Japan, South Korea, the UK, and others, that are affected by this artificial constraint will send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat by a nation that has been totally decapitated,” he added.
“In the meantime, the United States will be bombing the hell out of the shoreline, and continually shooting Iranian boats and ships out of the water. One way or the other, we will soon get the Hormuz Strait OPEN, SAFE, and FREE!”
Trump repeated his appeal later on Saturday, extending it to all “the Countries of the World that receive Oil through the Hormuz Strait,” and said the US would provide “a lot” of support to those who joined.
The president has also threatened to target Iran’s vital oil infrastructure on Kharg Island if its leadership were to “interfere” with ships trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz.
He said the US had “obliterated” military targets on the small island off Iran’s coast on Friday, calling it “one of the most powerful bombing raids in the history of the Middle East.”
Iran’s military warned that oil and energy infrastructure belonging to firms working with the US would “immediately be destroyed” if the island’s oil facilities were attacked.