Trump Threatens to Destroy Iran's Power Grid Tuesday

President issues expletive-laden ultimatum over Strait of Hormuz, setting a 48-hour deadline that markets treat as near-certain escalation.

President Donald Trump threatened on Easter Sunday to bomb Iran's power plants and bridges on Tuesday unless Tehran reopens the Strait of Hormuz, marking the most explicit infrastructure ultimatum of the five-week-old war. "Open the F***ing Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell," Trump wrote on X, dubbing the planned strikes "Power Plant Day and Bridge Day."

The post came hours after US Navy SEALs rescued a downed American airman shot down by Iranian forces, an operation that appears to have emboldened the president. Trump told Fox News there was a "good chance" of a deal being reached, even as he escalated the rhetoric. Iran has shown no sign of reopening the strait, which carries roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply.

Prediction markets have already priced the threat as operational reality. The probability of US forces entering Iran by April 30 sits at 99.85% on Polymarket, with $28.2 million in 24-hour trading volume as of 5 April. Ceasefire odds tell a starker story: just 2.65% by the Tuesday strike date, rising to 8.5% by mid-April and 22.5% by month's end. Together, these markets describe a consensus expectation of imminent escalation followed by a slow, painful search for an exit.

This is not Trump's first Hormuz deadline. He has issued and extended similar ultimatums at least three times since late March, each time postponing strikes while negotiations stalled. Amnesty International has called the power plant threats a potential war crime. The question now is whether Tuesday's deadline holds or becomes another extension. The market's answer, at 99.85%, leaves almost no room for doubt.