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The US and Iran are dismissing terms of a proposed ceasefire, as President Donald Trump sticks by his threat to destroy power plants in Iran absent a deal for Tehran to allow free passage through the strait of Hormuz.
The proposal for a ceasefire is "significant" but "not good enough", Trump said Monday morning. Trump subsequently said he was not backing down from his threat — reiterated over the weekend — to destroy power plants and bridges in Iran if there is not a deal to reopen the strait of Hormuz by 8pm ET on Tuesday.
"We have a plan, because of the power of our military, where every bridge in Iran will be decimated by 12 o'clock tomorrow night, where every power plant in Iran will be out of business, burning, exploding and never to be used again," Trump said at a press conference later on Monday.
The US has already escalated its assault on Iran by launching the "largest volumes of strikes" since the US-Israeli attacks began on 28 February, US defense secretary Pete Hegseth said. Even so, US-Iran negotiations are "going well", offering a potential off-ramp to an attack on Iran's power grid that would send the country back to the "stone ages", Trump said.
"We have to have a deal that's acceptable to me, and part of that deal is going to be we want free traffic of oil and everything else," Trump said.
Trump's deadline to reopen the strait of Hormuz will not change how Iran defends itself from attack, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei said on Monday. Iran will not agree to a temporary ceasefire because that would only provide a "pause" for the US and Israel to refresh their military forces and equipment so they could attack again.
"No intelligent person would accept such a thing," Baqaei said. "Our demand is for an end to the imposed war, along with assurances that this vicious cycle will not be repeated."
Trump has repeatedly pushed back the timing of his threat to destroy power plants in Iran, most recently over the weekend when he said the attack would take place on Tuesday, rather than on Monday. Trump said he did not want to attack the day after Easter. Iran has threatened to respond to any attacks on its power infrastructure with a corresponding attack on neighboring countries that are hosting US military infrastructure.
Assaults on Mideast Gulf energy infrastructure continued over the weekend. A vessel was attacked off the UAE, the UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) said.
The Ice front-month June Brent contract traded as low as $107.03/bl on Monday, down by nearly 1.9pc from its settlement on 2 April. The price rebounded to $109.78/bl as of 2:47pm ET.
