Iran‘s parliament speaker dismissed warnings from President Donald Trump that the American blockade could trigger catastrophic damage to the country’s oil infrastructure.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the parliament of Iran, mocked claims that Iranian oil lines could explode due to excess production with no exports, calling the assessment “junk” and ridiculing its timeline on Wednesday.
“Three days in, no well exploded,” Ghalibaf wrote on X. “We could extend to 30 and livestream the well here. That was the kind of junk advice the US admin gets from people like Bessent who also push the blockade theory and cranked oil up to $120+. Next stop:140. The issue isn’t the theory, it’s the mindset.”
His comments come after Trump warned over the weekend that Iran had just days before its oil infrastructure could fail, arguing that excess production combined with export restrictions could overwhelm storage capacity.
“What happens is that line explodes from within. Both mechanically and in the Earth, something happens where it just explodes, and they say they only have about three days left before that happens,” Trump said on Fox News’s The Sunday Briefing. “And when it explodes, you can never rebuild it the way it is.”
Iranian officials quickly fired back. Esmail Saghab Esfahani, an Iranian vice president of energy, warned that any damage to Iran’s oil facilities would prompt retaliatory action against countries backing the blockade.
“If, as Trump claims, any part of our infrastructure … is damaged … we guarantee that four times the damage will be inflicted,” he said, adding, “Our math is different: one oil well equals four oil wells.”
U.S. officials, meanwhile, are defending the pressure campaign as effective. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Wednesday the “maximum pressure” strategy has pushed Iran’s economy into crisis, citing a sharply weakened currency, surging inflation, and frozen overseas assets.
“We are sprinting for the finish line,” Bessent said, adding that Washington is prepared to impose secondary sanctions on countries and financial institutions that continue purchasing Iranian oil.
IRAN VOWS MASSIVE STRIKES IF OIL INFRASTRUCTURE ‘EXPLODES’ FROM US BLOCKADE
At sea, U.S. Central Command is touting the U.S. blockade enforcement efforts. Adm. Brad Cooper said American forces have turned away dozens of vessels attempting to bypass restrictions, leaving tens of millions of barrels of oil stranded.
“Right now there are 41 tankers with 69 million barrels of oil that the Iranian regime can’t sell,” Cooper said in a statement posted to X on Wednesday. “That’s an estimated $6 billion-plus. … The blockade is highly effective.”