Iran threatens ‘crush­ing’ repris­als as Trump’s dead­line on Hor­muz looms

▸ US ulti­matum on strait’s open­ing ▸ ‘Bombed into the stone age’ warn­ing ▸ Both sides reject truce deals

^{FT 07-04-2026} NAJMEH BOZORGMEHR — TEHRAN ANDREW ENGLAND — LONDON STEFF CHÁVEZ AND JAMES POLITI — WASHINGTON

Iran yes­ter­day threatened a “crush­ing” response to attacks on its civil­ian infra­struc­ture as the region braced itself for Don­ald Trump’s dead­line for the Islamic repub­lic to reopen the Strait of Hor­muz or face strikes on its power plants.

Iran’s mil­it­ary issued the warn­ing after Israeli air strikes shut the repub­lic’s main pet­ro­chem­ical plants, hit­ting a key industry and source of export rev­enue as Israel and the US stepped up attacks on the nation’s infra­struc­ture.

Nev­er­the­less, the US con­tin­ued to issue threats of mil­it­ary escal­a­tion against the Islamic repub­lic, with Trump warn­ing Iran that it could be “taken out” as early as today.

“The entire coun­try can be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomor­row night,” the US pres­id­ent said at the White House yes­ter­day.

With regard to strikes on civil­ian infra­struc­ture Trump claimed that Ira­ni­ans would back such attacks.

“They would be will­ing to suf­fer that in order to have free­dom,” the pres­id­ent said, adding that the US had had “numer­ous” inter­cepts with Ira­ni­ans say­ing “‘please keep bomb­ing”.

Trump insisted that whether the war ended or the US bombed Iran into the “stone age” depended on what Tehran did. “This is a crit­ical period,” he said before the 8.00pm dead­line today for the Islamic regime to allow traffic to transit the Strait of Hor­muz.

“They have ’till tomor­row. Now we’ll see what hap­pens. I can tell you they’re nego­ti­at­ing. We think in good faith. I can tell you that we have an act­ive, will­ing par­ti­cipant on the other side; they would like to be able to make a deal.”

Earlier in the day Trump said that Iran had made a pro­posal to end the war but that it was not suf­fi­cient to meet Wash­ing­ton’s demands. “They made a pro­posal and it’s a sig­ni­fic­ant pro­posal, it’s a sig­ni­fic­ant step. It’s not good enough but it’s a very sig­ni­fic­ant step,” the US pres­id­ent said dur­ing the tra­di­tional White House Easter egg roll.

Trump has talked up pro­gress on indir­ect talks with Tehran, while also doub­ling down on his threat to bomb power plants and bridges. For its part, Iran said it had rejec­ted what it described as a US pro­posal to halt the con­flict, insist­ing any deal should lead to “a per­man­ent end to war”, accord­ing to state media.

The Islamic repub­lic was seek­ing the lift­ing of US sanc­tions and “a pro­tocol” for safe pas­sage of ships through the Strait of Hor­muz, IRNA repor­ted. Tehran had presen­ted a 10-point plan to the US, through Pakistani medi­at­ors, for end­ing the war, state media said.

Iran’s abil­ity to, in effect, close the Strait of Hor­muz, and its attacks on oil and gas facil­it­ies in the Gulf, have triggered a global energy crisis and hit exports in other com­mod­it­ies, includ­ing pet­ro­chem­ic­als and fer­til­iser.

Saudi Ara­bia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, which is able to cir­cum­vent the strait using its pipeline to the Red Sea, has raised the premium it charges for its crude to record levels as the war puts strains on global sup­plies.

Iran said yes­ter­day that air strikes hit com­pan­ies sup­ply­ing util­it­ies to pet­ro­chem­ic­als facil­it­ies, the latest escal­a­tion of a con­flict that is in its sixth week. The coun­try’s Khatam al-Anbia cent­ral com­mand centre said: “From the out­set, we made it clear that any aggres­sion tar­get­ing non-mil­it­ary sites would be met with an expo­nen­tial response against the enemy’s interests across the region.”