By Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, The Daily Signal | April 07, 2026
President Donald Trump threatened massive attacks on Iran if the regime does not open the Strait of Hormuz.
“A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump wrote Tuesday on Truth Social. “I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.”
“However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?” Trump continued.
Trump has given Iran a deadline of 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday to make a deal to reopen the key oil shipping lane. If Iran doesn’t come to the table, Trump has said he will decimate every bridge and power plant in the country.
“We will find out tonight, one of the most important moments in the long and complex history of the World,” Trump wrote. “47 years of extortion, corruption, and death, will finally end. God Bless the Great People of Iran!”
The United States struck military targets on Kharg Island, a key Iranian oil export hub, on Monday night. However, Vice President JD Vance said this does not mark “a change in strategy” in the conflict.
“We were going to strike some military targets on Kharg Island, and I believe we have done so,” Vance said in Budapest, Hungary.
“We’re not going to strike energy and infrastructure targets until the Iranians either make a proposal that we can get behind or don’t make a proposal,” he added. “I don’t think the news in Kharg Island … represents a change in strategy, or represents any change from the president of the United States.”
Iran says it would retaliate against U.S. allies in the Gulf, whose desert cities would be uninhabitable without power or water. It claimed to have carried out fresh strikes on a ship in the Gulf and a huge Saudi petrochemical complex.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement that Tehran would “deprive America and its allies in the region of oil and gas for years”.
“Up to today we have shown great restraint for the sake of good neighbourliness and have had some consideration in choosing targets for retaliation,” it said. “But all these restraints have since been removed.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell is the White House Correspondent for "The Daily Signal."
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