On April 6, 2026, Donald Trump publicly threatened Iran with massive strikes on bridges and power plants. But on April 7, as the deadline he himself had set approached, that pressure strategy was paired with an offer of an immediate ceasefire—framed, according to Reuters, as the opening of broader talks within 15 to 20 days. Tehran rejected the proposal. Still, this shift does not change the central fact: to extract an agreement on the nuclear issue and the Strait of Hormuz, the White House has already publicly put infrastructure on which civilian life depends at risk.
From Raw Threat To Conditional Truce
The new development is therefore not merely the threat of another strike. It is the way Washington is trying to turn that threat into diplomatic leverage. Reuters reports that a proposal conveyed via Pakistan envisaged an immediate ceasefire and the lifting of the de facto blockade of Hormuz, followed by talks toward a broader settlement within 15 to 20 days. At the same time, Donald Trump continued to brandish a strike plan concentrated over four hours and insisted the whole country could be “wiped out in one night.” Presented this way, the sequence shifts the debate: it is no longer only about the intensity of escalation, but about the legality of the threat and the credibility of the diplomatic escape hatch.
Under international humanitarian law, civilian objects cannot be targeted as such. The International Committee of the Red Cross reminds, in its customary law database, that attacks must distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects. In a landmark analysis on energy infrastructure, ICRC legal advisers Eirini Giorgou and Abby Zeith further stress that electricity powers services essential to civilians, from water to hospitals. In other words, a power plant or a bridge cannot be treated as a lawful target in principle; it all depends on its concrete military use, the military necessity invoked, and the proportionality of the attack.
That therefore does not allow one to assert that a war crime has already been committed. But the public threat raises the legal and political risk a notch, even if it is now accompanied by a proposed truce. France 24 noted on April 7 that this rhetoric had entered an open debate about war crimes. Indeed, it targets assets whose destruction would primarily affect civilians.
Western Allies Still Put in an Awkward Spot
This sequence complicates the position of Western partners. Substantively, several European capitals share the objective of containing Iran’s nuclear program and securing commercial navigation in the Gulf. But in recent weeks they have also drawn a red line against attacks targeting populations and civilian infrastructure.
On March 27, G7 foreign ministers, meeting under the French presidency, called for “an immediate halt to attacks on populations and civilian infrastructure.” This wording was not aimed solely at American rhetoric. However, it becomes politically awkward when the President of the United States publicly threatens Iranian bridges and power plants, then attempts to tether that threat to a truce. For Paris, Berlin, Rome or Brussels, the cost is not only moral. It touches the credibility of a Western camp that claims to defend the international order. Yet that camp is forced to comment on, endorse, or downplay a threat against civilian installations while simultaneously praising, or not, the diplomatic opening.
France, for its part, has already condemned the de facto closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It has also denounced Iranian attacks on commercial vessels and energy facilities. But the sequence opened by Donald Trump further complicates the equation: allies can support freedom of navigation, non-proliferation and even the idea of a truce without thereby endorsing a threat directed at civilian infrastructure. It is this dissonance that weakens the diplomatic coalition.
Why The Strait Of Hormuz Also Matters For Europe
The second consequence is very concrete. The Strait of Hormuz remains one of the world’s most sensitive energy chokepoints. The International Energy Agency indicates that in 2025 about 20 million barrels per day of crude and petroleum products transited it. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that this corridor accounted for nearly 29% of global seaborne oil flows. Moreover, in the first half of 2025 it made up a large share of liquefied natural gas trade.
For Europe, that means rapid exposure to price shocks, even without uniform dependence on any single Gulf supplier. If a truce held and was accompanied by a reopening of Hormuz, some pressure could ease from the markets. But as long as this passage remains vulnerable, renewed military deterioration can push up the price of oil, increase maritime transport costs and thereby feed fuel prices and, by extension, inflation. In an already tense context, the Trump-Iran sequence therefore concerns not only Washington and Tehran: it also threatens European household budgets.
A Diplomatic Window That Doesn’t Erase The Precedent
At this stage, several points remain uncertain. Reuters described a two-step plan, with an immediate ceasefire followed by 15 to 20 days of talks. But no fully verified official Iranian document yet confirms acceptance of that formula. The criminal-law qualification of possible strikes also remains conditional: it would depend on the targets actually hit, the military justifications advanced and the concrete effects on civilians.
But the essential fact is already visible. By publicly threatening bridges and power plants and then appending a conditional truce to that threat, Donald Trump has shifted the center of gravity. The question is no longer only how far the U.S. military can go. It is also how far the United States is willing to instrumentalize international law, global energy security and the discomfort of its allies to extract an agreement from Tehran.