DORAL, Fla.—President Donald Trump has said if Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) continues to threaten commercial shipping in the Hormuz Strait with missiles and drones, or by laying mines in the key waterway, the United States’ air and naval forces will intensify their Operation Epic Fury assaults.

“I will not allow a terrorist regime to hold the world hostage and attempt to stop the globe’s oil supply,” the U.S. president said in a March 9 press conference at his golf resort near Miami, where he met with House Republicans.

“If Iran does anything to [block the strait], they'll get hit at a much, much harder level,” Trump said, adding the United States is not targeting Iran’s energy-production infrastructure to avoid economically crippling the nation when the conflict is over. “We’re not looking to do that if we don’t have to. We are waiting to see what happens before we hit them.”

Hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social: “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”

Among the world’s most critical maritime shipping chokepoints, the 100-mile-long Hormuz Strait is where 20 percent of the world’s oil is exported from the Persian Gulf.

Since the United States and Israel launched their Feb. 28 attack on Iran, traffic through the strait—which at its narrowest points traces Iran’s coast—has come to a near standstill with up to 250 ships, including around 150 oil tankers, stacked in the Arabian Sea.

Iran’s IRGC has attacked as many as 15 commercial carriers in or near the strait with drones and missiles. In response, the seven largest global shipping insurers that insure up to 90 percent of the world’s oceangoing cargoes have canceled policies, citing war risks, leaving ships unwilling to transit the strait under IRGC guns and anchor in the Gulf State and Saudi Arabian ports that Iran is targeting.

As a result, global oil prices have increased by more than 30 percent, from $72.48 a barrel on Feb. 27 to close to $100 a barrel by March 9 after briefly nearing $120 a barrel earlier that day.

The Trump administration has authorized a $20 billion U.S. International Development Finance Corporation reinsurance program for tankers in an effort to encourage ships to move through the strait into the Persian Gulf.

“In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles, nuclear menace or anything,” Trump said, describing the reinsurance program as “political risk insurance.”

Noting the United States imports very little oil from the Persian Gulf, the president said “we’re doing this for the other parts of the world” that are dependent on Middle East oil.

Among those Operation Epic Fury beneficiaries is China, Iran’s largest oil customer, Trump said.

“They get a lot of their oil through the straits,” he said. “We have a very good relationship with President Xi [Jingping] in China … and we’re protecting the world from what these lunatics are trying to do.”

In response to a question from The Epoch Times asking if there was a timeline for fully restoring maritime traffic into the Persian Gulf, the president said the sooner the better.

“I want to keep it open. I want to keep it good,” Trump said. “You know, it doesn’t pertain to us so much as it does to China. We’re really helping China here and other countries, because they get a lot of their energy from the straits. But hey, look, we have a good relationship with China. It’s my honor to do it.”