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President Donald Trump said Tuesday that securing the Strait of Hormuz was not the responsibility of the United States as the Iran war continues beyond a month and the waterway remains closed by the Islamic Republic. Speaking to reporters after signing an executive order aimed at restricting mail-in voting, Trump told allies who he said have not been willing to do more for the U.S. war effort to “go get your own oil” and said it was “not for us” to keep the vital strait open.
Trump said the military could end its offensive in two to three weeks and added that the U.S. “will not have anything to do with” what happens next in the strait. He also said there is “no reason for us to do this,” suggesting the responsibility would instead fall on other countries that rely on the waterway, naming France and “whoever’s using the strait,” as AP reported.
The White House said Trump planned to deliver a prime-time address Wednesday evening to update the public on the war. Separately, the AP report said average U.S. gas prices rose past $4 a gallon after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz sent global oil supplies into disruption and contributed to higher energy costs.
AP reported that the strikes underscored the intensity of the war more than a month after the U.S. and Israel launched it, which has killed more than 3,000 people and disrupted global supplies of oil and natural gas, roiling global markets. The report said U.S. strikes hit Isfahan, sending a “massive fireball into the sky,” and said Tehran attacked a fully loaded Kuwaiti oil tanker in the Persian Gulf.
The AP account also linked the conflict’s maritime and energy disruptions to global pricing, saying Brent crude, the international benchmark, hovered around $107 a barrel Tuesday—up more than 45% since the war started Feb. 28. In the same reporting, Trump in a social media post directed blame at allies including the United Kingdom and France, writing that the “hard part is done” and urging them to “Go get your own oil,” after saying that Iran had been “essentially, decimated.”
Trump singled out France for not allowing planes to fly over French territory while taking military supplies to Israel, and the AP report said France has allowed U.S. Air Force use of the Istres base in southern France under guarantees about the missions involved. In Europe, AP reported that Spain said it closed its airspace for U.S. planes involved in the conflict, and an official speaking to AP on condition of anonymity said Italy recently refused to allow U.S. military assets to use the Sigonella air base in Sicily for an operation linked to the offensive.
Italy’s defense minister, Guido Crosetto, posted on X that the country still allowed the U.S. to use its bases and said there had been no cooling of relations. AP reported that Reuters earlier reported similar constraints on allied participation, and the AP account framed the pattern as reluctance by some allies to increase involvement without a clear endgame.
Another thread in Tuesday’s reporting was the kidnapping of a journalist in Iraq. AP said an American journalist was kidnapped in Baghdad, and Iraqi security forces were pursuing the captors, identifying the freelancer as Shelly Kittleson through Al-Monitor, one of the outlets she worked for; AP said two cars were involved and that a person inside one vehicle was apprehended, with Kittleson later transferred to a second car that fled.
AP reported that a U.S. official blamed the Iranian-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah for the kidnapping. Dylan Johnson, U.S. assistant secretary of state for public affairs, said on X that the State Department had “fulfilled our duty to warn this individual of threats against them,” while Al-Monitor said it stands by Kittleson’s “vital reporting.”
The AP report also said another U.S. aircraft carrier was deployed to the Middle East. AP reported that the aircraft carrier USS George H. W. Bush deployed Tuesday from Norfolk, Virginia, and was slated to head to the region, with two U.S. officials telling AP on condition of anonymity that it would be the third carrier sent to support the Iran war, alongside the USS Gerald R. Ford, which is undergoing repairs, and the USS Abraham Lincoln, which arrived in January.
Elsewhere in the region, AP said Israel’s military reported early Wednesday that it had killed a senior Hezbollah commander and another senior leader in two strikes in the Beirut area. The report said Israel’s defense minister Israel Katz said Israel planned to control the area south of the Litani River—about 20 miles (30 kilometers) north of the border—and described Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon after Hezbollah began launching missiles into northern Israel.
AP also reported that the United Arab Emirates barred Iranians from entering or transiting the country as the war rages, with three major airlines—Emirates and Etihad, as well as FlyDubai—making announcements on their websites. The AP report said Iran’s authorities put the death toll at more than 1,900, while Israel reported 19 dead within its borders, with AP saying at least two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank, and that Lebanon has reported more than 1,200 killed and more than 1 million displaced.