Lead image for Iran defiant on Strait as Trump tells Americans to accept high fuel prices.
Iran called on the US to accept defeat on Saturday, while President Donald Trump blasted Tehran as "very evil" and told Americans to prepare for continued high fuel prices as a result of the war.
Progress towards peace talks and oil tanker traffic through the strategic Strait of Hormuz remained halted, with no sign the warring parties were moving toward ending the conflict that the US and Israel launched on February 28.
"This strait will be opened and closed only under Iran's command, and so long as you do not accept the reality of defeat and stop indulging in fantasies, Iran will continue to enforce the blockade," Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi posted on X.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran had not decided to resume talks with the US. He told Iranian news outlet Shahrara News in an interview published on Saturday that Washington must meet conditions on the strait in order for shipping to resume in the waterway that handled one-fifth of the world's oil before the war.
Trump urged Americans to accept slightly higher gasoline prices while the conflict continues.
He told a political rally in Garden City, New York, on Friday that paying "a tiny little bit more for your gasoline" is worth the cost of ensuring "a very evil country" could not have a nuclear weapon, one of his stated rationales for the war.
"After we finish defeating Iran... pretty soon I'll be declaring the Hormuz Strait a territory of the United States," said Trump.
Throughout the conflict, the president has alternated between threats of escalation and assertions that a peace deal is imminent.