Strait of Hormuz could be opened in 2, 3 days, if… —Trump

“It will open up immediately upon signing,” he told reporters on the tarmac at JFK airport after watching the NBA Finals on Monday night, insisting that Iran will not be allowed nuclear weapons under the terms of a deal.

Trump said there are no “sticking points” that would prevent a deal from being reached, although the management of the strait, the way frozen Iranian assets are to be released and Israel’s war on Lebanon have all contributed to the deadlock in negotiations thus far.

Trump said: “We are very close to having a very, very good strong, powerful deal. If we go and bomb – which we can do very easily if we want and we spend another two or three weeks bombing – they’ll have nothing left whatsoever, but you won’t have the strait open for months.

“If we do the bombing, a lot of people are going to be killed. Who wants to do that? I don’t . And we’ll have a signed document that is actually stronger than doing the bombing.”

This came as Trump blamed Iran for downing a U.S. Army helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz yesterday and said the United States must respond to the attack.

A drone boat rescued two Army aviators who were aboard the Apache attack helicopter when it went down near the waterway that Iran has effectively closed during its war with the U.S and Israel. Trump said in a social media post that both service members “are safe and uninjured.”

“Nevertheless, the United States must, of necessity, respond to this attack,” Trump wrote.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to resume full-scale bombing of Iran, although he has pulled back several times as he likely knows that new strikes will keep the strait of Hormuz under the effective control of Iran and lead to an extremely dangerous escalation of attacks on US-allied Gulf states.

The effective closure of the strait has led to soaring energy prices around the globe, including in the US where the war is deeply unpopular.