*Trump Slams ‘WEAK on crime’ Pope Leo for spending time with Democrats
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Donald Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz will begin at 10 am Monday, as Iran warned that Americans should be prepared for gas prices to get even higher.
Trump announced the move via Truth Social on Sunday, saying the naval assets would ‘begin the process of blockading any all ships trying to enter’ the Strait.
US Central Command confirmed the blockade of ‘all maritime traffic entering and exiting Iranian ports’ will start on Monday at 10am ET.
‘All mariners are advised to… contact U.S. naval forces on bridge-to-bridge channel 16 when operating in the Gulf of Oman and Strait of Hormuz approaches,’ CENTCOM said in a statement.
Vessels using the strait to travel to and from non-Iranian ports will not be impeded.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche announced on social media Sunday that the Department of Justice is supporting the blockade.
‘The Department of Justice will vigorously prosecute anyone who buys or sells sanctioned Iranian oil,’ Blanche wrote.
However, Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei promised Iran has ‘large, untouched levers’ to strike back against Trump’s blockage, quipping that they cannot be pressured by ‘tweets and imaginary plans.’
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – who led negotiations with JD Vance on behalf of Iran – warned Americans that ‘soon you’ll be nostalgic for $4-$5 gas,’ The New York Times reported.
Oil prices rose in early market trading Sunday night after the US said it would blockade Iranian ports beginning Monday.
The price of US crude oil rose eight percent to $104.24 a barrel and Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose seven percent to $102.29.
Brent crude has swung dramatically during the month-plus long Iran war, rising from roughly $70 per barrel before the war in late February to more than $119 at times.
On Friday, ahead of the peace talks, Brent for June delivery fell 0.8 percent to $95.20 per barrel.
Rachel Ziemba of the Center for a New American Progress suggested that the period for negotiations to slow this process down may be over.
‘The de-escalation window for the global economy, such as it was, is over for now,’ she told The Wall Street Journal. ‘Iran is betting they can hold out longer than the US and the global economy.’
Iran has been effectively controlling the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway for global oil shipping.
Around a fifth of the world´s traded oil typically flows through the Strait of Hormuz every day.
Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Iran are all major exporters.
Traffic in the Strait has been limited even in the days since the ceasefire. Marine trackers say over 40 commercial ships have crossed since the start of the ceasefire.
The president claimed that the threat posed by the Iranian Navy is ‘gone’ from the key waterway thanks to the US military assault on the nation since February 28.
However, experts have warned that though much of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ large battleships have been destroyed, the smaller boats that control the Strait are still intact.
This means the US servicemen sent to the narrow waterway – which is only about 35 kilometers wide – will be sitting ducks for attacks by the IRGC.
Farzin Nadimi, an Iran-focused senior fellow with the Washington Institute, told the Wall Street Journal that more than 60 percent of the IRGC’s fast-attack craft and speedboat fleet is still operating.
David Des Roches, a former director responsible for Persian Gulf policy at the Defense Department, also noted that Iran’s ‘asymmetrical strategy is working.’
The smaller, more nimble boats are well versed in controlling the crucial chokepoint by deploying missiles and mines, and by harassing commercial ships.
‘Effective immediately, the United States Navy, the Finest in the World, will begin the process of BLOCKADING any and all Ships trying to enter, or leave, the Strait of Hormuz,’ Trump announced via Truth Social Sunday morning.
‘Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!’ he added.
‘Iran knows, better than anyone, how to END this situation which has already devastated their Country.
‘Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti Aircraft and Radar are useless, Khamenei, and most of their “Leaders,” are dead, all because of their Nuclear ambition. The Blockade will begin shortly.’
It comes amid a tenuous two-week ceasefire deal Trump struck with Tehran, which agreed to stop fighting in exchange for the opening of the strait.
Iran warned by marine radio that any unauthorized ships trying to cross the strait in the meantime would be destroyed.
Only four ships passed on day one, and Iran plans to limit traffic to about a dozen daily, down from more than 100.
Tehran has also warned of possible antiship mines, urging vessels to follow new coastal routes with Revolutionary Guard guidance.
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told the Journal that the U.S. had completed ‘the largest elimination of a navy over a three-week period since World War II.’
She also noted that the ‘U.S. military has destroyed Iran’s ability to shoot ballistic missiles or produce more, which will help secure the free flow of energy in the long term.’
The USS Franklin Petersen and the USS Michael Murphy are the two American destroyers currently in the Strait.
In his Sunday Truth Social post, Trump also said that Iran was ‘unwilling to give up its nuclear ambitions’ as Vice President JD Vance returned from peace talks in Pakistan empty-handed.
A US official familiar with the deliberations told The Daily Mail that at the outset of the talks, it was clear that the Iranians did not properly apprehend America’s core objective, which was that any potential deal has and always would have at its center the fact that Iran would never obtain a nuclear weapon.
Over the course of the deliberations, the Vice President corrected this misunderstanding and used his time with his counterparts to probe their own assessments of their positions, per the US official.
The official also conveyed that the Iranians need to recognize that the realities on the ground do not reflect the assumptions they held when they arrived at the negotiations before they will be ready to entertain a serious offer.
The Vice President still believes that a deal remains on the table, and that it is on the Iranians to accept it.
Trump also noted on Sunday morning that he instructed the US Navy ‘to seek and interdict every vessel in International Waters that has paid a toll to Iran,’ Trump added. ‘No one who pays an illegal toll will have safe passage on the high seas.’
‘Any Iranian who fires at us, or at peaceful vessels, will be BLOWN TO HELL!’ Trump said.
The President, speaking separately on Fox News Sunday Morning Futures, announced that NATO would ‘begrudgingly’ support the US in securing the Strait. He called NATO ‘shameful,’ claiming that ‘they weren’t there for us, and they won’t be there for us.’
Trump said he was ‘very disappointed’ in the UK, comparing Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to infamous Adolf Hitler appeaser Neville Chamberlain.
‘[Starmer] made a public statement: “We will send equipment after the war is over.” That’s a Neville Chamberlain-type statement,’ Trump told Fox.
A UK government spokesperson pushed back against Trump’s claims, noting that the UK will not be involved in the Strait of Hormuz blockade.
‘We continue to support freedom of navigation and the opening of the Strait of Hormuz, which is urgently needed to support the global economy and the cost of living back home,’ the UK government spokesperson noted.
In another develpoment , Donald Trump trashed ‘weak’ Pope Leo in a lengthy Truth Social post on Sunday after weeks of criticism of the Iran War from the American-born pontiff.
It also comes after Pope Leo met with former Barack Obama campaign manager David Axelrod, which Trump also slammed.
‘Pope Leo is WEAK on Crime, and terrible for Foreign Policy,’ Trump said, before criticizing the pope on several other issues.
Trump elaborated on the pope, whom he described as ‘a very liberal person,’ when speaking to the press at Joint Base Andrews on Sunday night.
‘I don’t think he’s doing a very good job. He likes crime I guess. We don’t like a pope who says it’s ok to have a nuclear weapon. We don’t want a pope that says crime is ok. I am not a fan of Pope Leo,’ Trump said.
The President went deeper on his opposition to Pope Leo and the church’s stance on several issues in the Truth Social post.
‘He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,’ Trump WROTE.
The President then referenced Leo’s brother Louis, who has said he’s a supporter of Trump and was feted at the White House last year.
‘I like his brother Louis much better than I like him, because Louis is all MAGA. He gets it, and Leo doesn’t!’
Trump then criticized Pope Leo again for suggesting he wanted Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Denuclearization of Iran is one of Trump’s main reasons for striking Tehran.
‘I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon. I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s terrible that America attacked Venezuela, a Country that was sending massive amounts of Drugs into the United States and, even worse, emptying their prisons, including murderers, drug dealers, and killers, into our Country.’
The President then claimed that Pope Leo ‘criticizes the President of the United States because I’m doing exactly what I was elected, IN A LANDSLIDE, to do.’
Trump then went on to even suggest that he is the only reason that Pope Leo became the first American leader of the Catholic Church.
‘Leo should be thankful because, as everyone knows, he was a shocking surprise. He wasn’t on any list to be Pope, and was only put there by the Church because he was an American, and they thought that would be the best way to deal with President Donald J. Trump. If I wasn’t in the White House, Leo wouldn’t be in the Vatican.’
Trump continued to rip Pope Leo for his meeting with Axelrod, who the President called an ‘Obama sympathizer’ and ‘a LOSER from the Left, who is one of those who wanted churchgoers and clerics to be arrested.’
‘Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It’s hurting him very badly and, more importantly, it’s hurting the Catholic Church!’
It was an extraordinary broadside against the global leader of the Catholic Church, exacerbating a feud that began over the war in Iran.
Trump then posted what appeared to be a drawing of himself as Jesus Christ healing a sick person, followed by a photoshop of what it would look like if Trump Tower were built on the moon.
The post followed Leo having denounced over the weekend the ‘delusion of omnipotence’ that is fueling the US-Israel war in Iran and demanded political leaders stop and negotiate peace.
Leo presided over an evening prayer service in St. Peter’s Basilica on the same day the United States and Iran began face-to-face negotiations in Pakistan during a fragile ceasefire.
The US-born pope didn’t mention the United States or Trump by name in his prayer.
But Leo’s tone and message appeared directed at Trump and US officials, who have boasted of US military superiority and justified the war in religious terms.
It came after the pontiff seemed to use his first Easter Sunday address to send a message to Trump as he urged ‘let those who have weapons lay them down’.
The pope, who has strongly denounced Trump’s war in Iran, deplored to the thousands gathered in St Peter’s Square that people ‘are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it and becoming indifferent’.
Speaking from the Vatican balcony, the first US-born pope exclaimed: ‘Let those who have weapons lay them down!
‘Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force but by dialogue.’
Leo, 70, did not specify a conflict within his message, known as the Urbi et Orbi blessing – translated as ‘to the city and the world’.
The papal address was unusually short and lasted around 15 minutes. It is normally around double the length in time.
Leo also reflected on the biblical story of Easter – in which Jesus rises from the dead three days after peacefully accepting his death by crucifixion – to highlight the ‘entirely nonviolent’ nature of Christ.
He added the peace Jesus gives ‘is not merely the silence of weapons’, and urged: ‘On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars.’
Leo is scheduled to leave Monday for an 11-day trip to Africa.
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