Trump sees interim deal to reopen strait soon, missile hits Saudi tanker
Deal would not involve the payment of tolls and could be extended.
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Deal would not involve the payment of tolls and could be extended.
RANCHO PALOS VERDES, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump said Tuesday that Iran would be “hit very hard” unless the strategic Strait of Hormuz is reopened “very soon,” in an interview with Fox News.
Trump said that talks were ongoing, as Axios reported that the US, Iran and Oman were nearing an interim deal to reopen the strait, which Washington was hoping to announce Wednesday.
“The strait is going to be open very soon, or they’re going to get hit very hard — and then the strait’s going to be open,” Trump said during a visit to California.
The Strait of Hormuz, a key conduit for global oil and gas supplies, has been the spark for repeated returns to fighting.
“We’re having very good discussions,” he said, insisting that Iran was keen to find a way to bring an end to a conflict that began on 28 February when the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran.
“The only thing that matters is action. And they want to make a deal. We’ll see what happens.”
“I have plenty of time,” he added.
Later, as he was about to board Air Force One for a flight from California to Las Vegas, Trump said he believed a deal could happen “tomorrow or the next day.”
Axios, citing unnamed regional officials and a US official, said the deal on the table would be a 60-day arrangement for safe passage in the strait between Iran and Oman.
That deal — which would not involve the payment of tolls — could then be extended, the report said.
All traffic heading into the Gulf would take a northern shipping lane, and outbound traffic would use a southern lane through Oman’s territorial waters.
Oil tanker attacked
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis said on Wednesday that they attacked a Saudi oil tanker off Yanbu, in the Red Sea, as the rebels pressed on with their declared maritime blockade of the kingdom.
This was the eighth Saudi oil tanker targeted since the start of the blockade on 22 July, a Houthi military spokesperson said.
The group “successfully targeted the Saudi oil tanker ‘Wafa’ in the northern Red Sea, off the coast of Yanbu, with a number of ballistic missiles,” Yahya Saree said in a video statement.
The Houthis declared they will escalate attacks in the northern Red Sea because Saudi Arabia is diverting its oil tankers there from the south in response to their blockade.
The blockade has threatened top oil exporter Saudi Arabia’s ability to get its supplies to the world following Iran’s parallel blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, cutting off the kingdom’s only other maritime route.
Saree said that the group’s blockade had pushed Saudi Arabia to divert “its oil tankers towards the northern Red Sea.”
So the group will now “escalate in targeting Saudi oil tankers in the northern Red Sea to close all access points and prevent their passage.”
With Iran’s closure of Hormuz, the Saudi port of Yanbu on the Red Sea became the main exit point for Saudi oil, with the Bab al-Mandeb Strait turning into a crucial transit route for crude.
The narrow waterway connects the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean and, via the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean.
Saudi seaborne crude exports via the Bab al-Mandeb strait surged eightfold between March and mid-July 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, according to data from maritime tracker Kpler.
It skyrocketed to nearly 100 million barrels for the month of June, compared to 7 million barrels in February.
