President Trump wants a Strait Answer

By Sue Kientz

In recent days a beleaguered Iran has given the U.S., Israel, and Iran’s neighbors in the Middle East, a huge predicament by threatening to close the Strait of Hormuz one way or another, which would cut off a significant percentage of the world’s oil supply. First Iran threatened to attack tankers that dared to pass through the strait,(1) then Iran announced it would mine the passage.(2) President Trump cajoled ships who were uneasy about navigating the area to keep going, first vowing to protect them, then offering ship reinsurance in case they were fired on,(3) and finally berating allies for not stepping up to “force” the strait to open.(4)  Iran has appeared to hold all the cards in this situation, with the U.S. President having no special Trump card to play. Meanwhile, President Trump has vacillated between being stoic about the situation, saying that the strait will open when it is opened,(5) to complaining about having no help from NATO, to insisting he didn’t want help from NATO,(6) claiming that asking them was only a loyalty test, to then suggesting he was actually thinking about “winding down the war,”(7) and now announcing a new ultimatum on Truth Social declaring that Iran must open the Strait of Hormuz in 48 hours exactly, or the American/Israeli military alliance will totally destroy all of Iran’s power plants, “starting with the biggest one.”(8) Iran promptly responded that if any of their power infrastructure was hit, they would destroy America’s power, information technology, and desalinization facilities in the region.(9)

It’s difficult to analyze all these threats and bluster and ascertain what anyone’s next move will be, whether from an observer’s perspective or even a well-informed journalist’s sources. One needs to be able to read people’s minds or guess their true intentions. This is the point where astrology can provide the ultimate “inside story” that no other down-to-earth source can.

This is not to say that observing Donald Trump over the last 10 years hasn’t been instructive and helpful in guessing how he might react or what kind of move he likes to make. Many have observed how patently unpredictable he can be, and there is reason to believe that right now he wants to be very unpredictable. That makes logical sense, since he’s at a crisis point about this major oil waterway and wants to do something about it, but he doesn’t want Iran to know or even anticipate he wants to make a move. Yet this has resulted in some strange disconnects, like Trump saying he wants to wind down the war, while the U.S. military openly moves thousands of soldiers to the Middle East, purportedly for some kind of ground operation.(10)

Astrology belies his conflicted state, especially regarding his desire to not be predictable. Right now, Jupiter (15 Cancer) is close to the point where Donald Trump’s planet of surprise, dwarf planet Makemake, was when he was born (16 Cancer).(11) When Jupiter hits someone’s Makemake, they are liable to not just do something crazy or out of the blue. With Jupiter triggering Makemake, the effect can be BIG, as Jupiter, the solar system’s largest planet, has an outsized effect on one’s sensitive chart points like Makemake. Add to that, Mars (16 Pisces) is trine (120 degrees, a supportive position, fortunate) to Jupiter (exactly to the minute when President Trump shot off that Truth Social post at Iran) as well as to Trump’s Makemake. Mars represents aggression, boasting, showing one’s warlike posture and even welcoming a fight. So how does Trump surprise Iran if he’s openly threatening to start bombing again if they don’t open the Strait of Hormuz in (clock ticking) less than 48 hours?

That might be the key – Trump has set a time limit before he will attack. Perhaps he thinks that the Iranians will genuinely feel they have some breathing room before the bombs are dropped, time to move people and military resources around. But is that a reasonable assumption? With Mars trine Jupiter, the idea of fighting feels too good, like one is bound to win. Remember, Trump feels Mars fortunately aligned to his Unpredictability factor, Makemake, and with Jupiter there too making him feel super lucky, he is unlikely to be using any logic at all. This is the guy who says he’ll know when to end the Iran war “when I feel it in my bones.”(12) Mercury (8 Pisces), which represents thinking, decision-making, and communication, has only recently emerged from a retrograde period(13) and therefore is moving very slowly and not-so-fortunately sesquiquadrate (135 degrees, liable to make one impatient) to Trump’s Saturn (23 Cancer). A leader needs a cool head and the counsel of trusted, experienced advisers, all of which are symbolic of Saturn’s best qualities. Mercury will certainly speed up and cease being an irritant in about a week, but by then Mars will square (90 degrees, critical problem) Trump’s Sun (22 Gemini), and that could be more casualties (Mars) from whatever plan he’s got up his sleeve right now.

Title Image credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons, photoshopped by author and ChatGPT (the latter provided the scissors).

Notes and References

1. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/3/2/iran-says-will-attack-any-ship-trying-to-pass-through-strait-of-hormuz

2. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/world/middleeast/iran-mines-strait-of-hormuz-us.html

3. https://apnews.com/article/strait-hormuz-iran-energy-war-5b60e82ef2fc68e2b43aa570a32404dd  

4. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/rebuffed-allies-trump-help-defending-strait-hormuz-rcna263917

5. “At a certain point, it will open itself,” https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fE8qZVjzWn0

6.  https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2026/03/16/as-allies-resist-us-call-to-help-in-strait-of-hormuz-trump-says-it-was-a-loyalty-test/

7.  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd5l00z7n6o

8. https://www.foxnews.com/video/6391358021112

9. https://www.wionews.com/photos/iran-issues-first-respond-to-trump-s-will-obliterate-power-plants-threat-strait-of-hormuz-1774143212657

10. https://www.reuters.com/world/us-deploy-thousands-additional-troops-middle-east-officials-say-2026-03-20/

11. Trump, Donald J., 14 June 1946, 10:54 a.m., Queens, NY, Birth Cert., https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Trump,_Donald  

12. https://www.politico.com/news/2026/03/13/trump-iran-war-ending-timeline-00828138

13. All planets including dwarf planets can appear to stop (called “stationing”) and slowly move retrograde, or backward in degrees as observed from Earth, due to the position of Earth sometimes moving faster than other bodies, so the other planets seem to drift backwards in the sky for a certain period (then they “stop” or station and move in forward motion). Sun and Moon never appear to move retrograde.

For keywords and example personalities of the new dwarf planets, see “Dwarf Planet Basics,” 6 November 2024, ANS, https://astrologynewsservice.com/articles/dwarf-planet-basics/

For more details about the angles or relationships between planets, see Lynne Hyde’s “Astrology Basics,” 12 November 2024, ANS, https://astrologynewsservice.com/articles/astrology-basics/