President Donald Trump said Sunday that he is not ruling out sending U.S. ground troops to Iran if Tehran does not make a deal over reopening the Hormuz Strait by a Tuesday deadline.
“No,” Trump told The Hill in a phone interview when he was asked if he would rule out sending ground troops to Iran, also saying that no civilian infrastructure targets would be ruled out.
“Normal people would make a deal. Smart people would make a deal,” the president said. “If they were smart they would make a deal.”
Earlier in the day, Trump issued a stark warning on Truth Social that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran” before calling on the regime to open the Hormuz Strait. “Or you’ll be living in Hell,” he added.
Also on Sunday, he posted a separate post on Truth Social, only saying: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time.”
Since the start of the conflict, the U.S. and Israeli militaries have primarily launched aerial strikes on targets inside Iran. So far, no ground troops have been deployed to the country, although Trump has said on multiple occasions over the past month that he is not ruling out the possibility.
Iranian officials on Sunday said they would retaliate if any civilian infrastructure is hit by the United States or Israel. There have been no public indications that members of the regime would be willing to make a deal over reopening the Hormuz Strait following Trump’s comments over the weekend.
Tehran is demanding an end to hostilities, and its parliamentary speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf condemned Trump’s threats on Sunday, saying he was being led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Your reckless moves are dragging the United States into a living HELL for every single family, and our whole region is going to burn because you insist on following Netanyahu’s commands,” he wrote in a post on X.
On Sunday, in response to Israeli strikes on petrochemical sites in Iran, Tehran hit petrochemicals plants in Kuwait, Bahrain, and Abu Dhabi. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps also said they hit by what they described as an Israeli ship in Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.
The strait, a key waterway that connects the Persian Gulf to the wider ocean, has been effectively shut down since the war started on Feb. 28, sending oil and gas prices surging worldwide. Iran has launched attacks on civilian oil tankers in the region and claimed they were being used to fuel the U.S.–Israeli operation.
It comes as Trump announced the rescue of an American military airman, which took place in a mountainous area of Iran in the early hours of Sunday, in a social media post that described the operation as “one of the most daring” such missions in U.S. history.