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Donald Trump has threatened to expand US attacks on Iran to power stations and bridges next week unless Tehran returns to the negotiating table, raising fresh alarm over the risk to civilians and the legality of striking infrastructure used by millions of people.
“Next week it gets really bad for them because next week comes the power plants. Next week comes the bridges,” the US president told Fox News. “We’re going to knock out all their power plants. We’re going to knock out all their bridges unless they get to the table and negotiate.”
The warning came as American forces carried out another round of strikes against Iran and reimposed a naval blockade on Iranian ports around the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran has responded with attacks on US-linked military sites in the Gulf and threatened to disrupt other regional energy routes if Washington attempts to control the waterway.
Trump’s comments mark another dangerous escalation in a conflict that has already sent oil prices higher, disrupted shipping and brought attacks across several countries in the Middle East. They also invite an urgent question: is the president openly threatening civilian infrastructure to force a political concession?
‘Next week comes the power plants’
Trump made clear that power stations and bridges would become targets if Iran refused to accept US demands. He did not identify particular sites or explain whether the facilities he had in mind were being used for military purposes. Instead, he spoke in sweeping terms about destroying “all” of Iran’s power plants and bridges.
That distinction matters under international humanitarian law. Civilian buildings and infrastructure are protected from attack unless they have become military objectives. Even where a target has a military use, an attack must still distinguish between military and civilian objects and avoid civilian harm that would be excessive in relation to the expected military advantage.
A blanket threat to destroy an entire country’s electricity network would therefore raise profound legal concerns, particularly because power cuts affect hospitals, water systems, communications and food storage long after the initial strike.
The United Nations has repeatedly warned that attacks directed at civilians and civilian objects are prohibited. Its reporting on energy attacks in Ukraine has documented how damage to electricity systems can also cut off heating, water, sanitation and medical services, spreading the consequences far beyond the location that was bombed.
Whether any specific US attack would be unlawful would depend on the target, its military use, the expected civilian impact and the precautions taken. But Trump’s broad language sounded less like a carefully limited military operation and more like collective punishment.
A threat Trump has made before
This is not the first time Trump has threatened Iran’s essential infrastructure. Earlier in the conflict, he warned that the United States could strike power plants, bridges and water facilities if Tehran did not meet his demands. Legal experts warned at the time that attacking installations essential to civilian survival could breach the laws of war.
Trump has now revived the threat while military action is already under way. The ceasefire he had previously extended in what Iran called “a ploy to buy time for a surprise strike” has clearly not held. US Central Command has said its recent strikes were aimed at Iranian military capabilities used to threaten commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. Official statements have described attacks on dozens of targets, framing them as efforts to protect navigation through one of the world’s most important trading routes.
That stated mission is narrower than Trump’s warning. Disabling military systems used to attack ships is one thing. Threatening to wipe out power stations and bridges across Iran to force its government into negotiations is quite another.
Strait of Hormuz at the centre of the conflict
The latest escalation centres on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes.
Washington says it is acting to protect commercial shipping after attacks on civilian vessels. Iran argues that the United States is trying to impose control over a strategic passage directly beside its coastline.
Trump has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports after an interim ceasefire and diplomatic process began to unravel. He had also proposed charging ships a 20% fee for US “security” in the strait, but abandoned the plan hours before it was due to come into force, saying investment and trade agreements with Gulf states would replace it. The blockade remains.
Tehran has responded by warning that if its own oil and gas exports are prevented, routes serving the United States and its allies could also be disrupted. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said energy exports would be “for everyone or for no one”, while Iranian-linked threats have also focused on the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, another major shipping chokepoint connecting the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.
The prospect of disruption at both waterways has intensified fears over global energy supplies. Oil prices rose again as hostilities worsened, with traders reacting to the renewed blockade and the possibility that Iran or allied groups could widen attacks on shipping. The UN has separately warned that 45 million people face starvation if the strait is not reopened to fertiliser ships within weeks, a stark illustration of how far the consequences of this conflict already extend beyond the battlefield itself.
Iran retaliates across the region
Iran has launched retaliatory attacks against US and allied targets in the Gulf. The IRGC said it targeted facilities connected to the US Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, including command, logistics and fuel sites. Bahrain and Kuwait also reported attacks, while Jordan said its air defences had intercepted ballistic missiles entering its airspace.
Iranian state media separately claimed that a drone attack had been launched against a base in Jordan used by American aircraft. Some battlefield claims from both sides remain difficult to verify independently. But the geographic spread of the exchanges shows how quickly the conflict is moving beyond Iran itself.
US bases and allied countries across the Gulf are now exposed to retaliation whenever Washington expands its campaign. Iran, in turn, faces overwhelming American military power and the possibility that strikes will move from military positions to the systems that keep its cities functioning. That is how a fight presented as an operation to secure shipping risks becoming a much wider regional war.
Negotiations appear close to collapse
The United States and Iran signed an interim agreement on 17 June intended to create space for negotiations on a longer-term truce. Those talks now appear increasingly fragile. Iranian deputy foreign minister Kazem Gharibabadi said the renewed US blockade had effectively dismantled the Islamabad memorandum that underpinned the diplomatic process.
Trump’s message is that bombing will continue until Iran gives way. Asked how long the strikes would last, he replied: “They’ll continue until I say it’s enough.” That is not a timetable or a defined military objective. It places the end of the campaign almost entirely at the president’s personal discretion.
Trump says the pressure is intended to bring Iran back to negotiations. But threatening to destroy power grids and transport links may have the opposite effect, giving Tehran little political room to compromise without appearing to surrender under attack. It also increases the chance that Iran will retaliate against civilian energy infrastructure in neighbouring Gulf countries, a possibility it has raised before in response to similar American threats.
Bridges are not automatically civilian targets
The legal position around bridges is more complicated than the president’s language suggests. A bridge can become a legitimate military objective if it is being used to move troops, weapons or other military supplies and its destruction offers a definite military advantage. Power facilities can also have military functions.
But dual use does not remove the obligation to consider civilian harm. A bridge may also carry workers, ambulances and food supplies. A power station may serve a military base while simultaneously keeping hospitals and water pumps running.
The legality of an attack cannot be determined by simply labelling a structure “infrastructure”. Nor can a president lawfully destroy every bridge or power station in a country because doing so might increase political pressure on its government.
The stated purpose matters. Trump explicitly linked the threatened destruction to forcing Iran “to the table”. That sounds less like eliminating a specific military threat and more like inflicting pain on the country until its leadership accepts American terms.
The civilian consequences would spread quickly
Destroying electricity generation would not only switch off lights. Hospitals would become dependent on generators and limited fuel supplies. Water pumping and treatment systems could fail. Refrigerated medicines and food would spoil. Phone networks and internet infrastructure could go down.
The damage would fall hardest on people least able to protect themselves: hospital patients, older people, children and families unable to afford alternative power. Bridges are equally embedded in civilian life. Their destruction can isolate communities, block emergency services and interrupt supplies of fuel, medicine and food.
Those consequences are why international law treats civilian infrastructure as protected and requires military planners to assess the wider effects of each strike. Trump’s language contained no acknowledgement of any of that. He spoke about Iran’s power plants and bridges as bargaining chips.
From a shipping operation to a war without clear limits
The administration has described its current campaign as a response to attacks on commercial vessels and an effort to restore safe passage through Hormuz. Yet the scope keeps expanding.
There have been repeated rounds of strikes. The blockade has returned. Trump has floated and abandoned a shipping toll. Iran has attacked targets across the Gulf. Now the president is threatening the systems that support ordinary civilian life.
The conflict no longer has an obvious boundary. Trump says it will end when he decides the punishment has been sufficient or when Iran agrees to negotiate. Tehran says it will resist attempts to control its exports and may retaliate against other energy routes.
Between those two positions sit millions of civilians across Iran and the wider region, along with an international economy heavily dependent on Gulf energy. The war has already pushed the UK to the brink of recession, putting a quarter of a million jobs at risk, while BP’s profits have more than doubled to £2.4bn as an energy windfall from the conflict even as British households face rising bills, and Ed Miliband has had to unveil emergency plans to break the link between gas and electricity prices directly because of the shock.
Trump may believe that threatening overwhelming damage will force a rapid deal. It may instead ensure that both sides keep escalating until neither has a politically acceptable route back.
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