BREAKING: Ceasefire Terminated After Iran Opens Fire in Strait, Trump Orders Huge Retaliation, Says 'You Have to Cut Out Cancer'

President Donald Trump declared Wednesday that the United States’ ceasefire arrangement with Iran is effectively finished after a series of attacks on commercial vessels near the Strait of Hormuz.

Speaking during a meeting with NATO leaders in Ankara, Turkey, Trump delivered a blunt assessment of Tehran’s conduct and made clear that his administration no longer views the fragile agreement brokered last month by Pakistan as viable.

According to CBS News, Trump’s comments followed a series of U.S. airstrikes along Iran’s coast, signaling Washington’s growing frustration with the regime’s continued aggression. The United States also blocked Iran’s ability to legally sell oil on international markets, a concession that had been included in the June 17 memorandum, CBS reported.

Trump’s remarks publicly froze the deal.

“To me, I think it’s over,” Trump told reporters, according to Reuters.

“They’re scum. They’re sick people,” he added. “They’re led by sick people, and they’re vicious, violent people.”

The president said he would still consult with negotiators, but he argued that Iran’s actions only reinforce the danger of allowing the Islamist regime to ever obtain a nuclear weapon.

“Far as I’m concerned, it’s just a waste of time dealing with them,” he said.

The Washington Post described Trump’s remarks as “rais[ed] the prospect of major renewed hostilities.”

Although Iran has struggled to respond directly to U.S. and Israeli strikes with meaningful conventional force, the regime has continued using asymmetric tactics, including drones and maritime threats near the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterway off Iran’s southern coast is one of the world’s most important energy routes, with roughly one-fifth of global oil passing through it during peacetime.

The strait had reopened to shipping traffic after the preliminary memorandum was signed last month. Even with several isolated exchanges of fire since then, the ceasefire had appeared to remain in place.

That changed after the latest attacks.

On Tuesday night, U.S. Central Command announced “an immediate response to Iran’s latest attacks on commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.”

“The U.S. strikes hit Iranian air defense systems, command-and-control networks, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile weapons and more than 60 small boats associated with the IRGC, Iran’s paramilitary force, the U.S. statement said. The effort is meant to degrade Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial shipping,” the Post reported.

Trump described the American response as a “20-to-1” answer to Iranian aggression.

The administration’s broader pressure campaign also appears to be escalating. Before Trump’s remarks, the U.S. Treasury Department announced steps blocking Iranian oil sales, while reportedly giving Tehran until July 17 to wind down transactions already in progress.

For Trump, the message was unmistakable: Iran cannot attack commercial shipping, threaten global energy routes, and expect continued concessions from the United States.

“These are evil, sick people,” he said. “And we have to rid their cancer. And you know what you do? You’ve got to cut out cancer early. And that’s the way I feel.”

The collapse of the ceasefire marks another major test for Trump’s second-term foreign policy. Unlike the weakness and hesitation that defined the Biden years, Trump is again signaling that America will answer aggression with force, protect international commerce, and refuse to reward hostile regimes that rely on terror, blackmail, and chaos.

The question now is whether Iran will back down or continue pushing the region toward a larger confrontation.