President Donald Trump said the United States would strike Iran at a “much, much harder level” if the country attempts to disrupt the global oil supply.
Trump told reporters at a news conference Monday that the U.S. has struck more than 5,000 targets since the beginning of the conflict. He said the U.S.left some of the “most important” targets for “later.”
“In the long run, oil supplies will be dramatically more secure without the threat of Iranian ships, drones, missiles… The Strait of Hormuz is going to remain safe,” Trump said. “We will hit them so hard that it will not be possible for them or anyone else helping them, to ever recover that section of the world.”
Trump referred to Operation Midnight Hammer, a strike on Iranian facilities in June 2025. He said Iran would have obtained a nuclear weapon in a matter of weeks and Israel would have been “annihilated” if the U.S. did not strike Iran last summer.
Trump said he decided to pursue military action in Iran because “they never negotiated in good faith” to deescalate its nuclear weapon ambitions. He said Iranian officials moved its nuclear enrichment program to a different site that was “protected by granite” in order to develop ballistic missiles.
“The regime’s intention was to use this exponentially growing ballistic missile threat to make it virtually impossible to prevent them from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
The U.S. Navy is offering to escort oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz as prices have been rattled in the midst of the Middle East conflict. Trump said Iran would “take over” the Middle East if the U.S. did not intervene with military action.
Trump ruled out the conflict ending in one week but said it would be over “soon.”
“It’s going to be ended soon, and if it starts up again, they’ll be hit even harder,” Trump said.
Trump also said the war represents the “beginning of building a new country” in Iran. He said he was “disappointed” in the decision to pick Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali Khamenei’s son, as the new leader of Iran. Ali Khamenei was killed in the initial bombings more than a week ago.
He appeared to mention Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s former shah, as a leader to emerge in the midst of the conflict. He said he likes the idea of someone inside Iran to take over leadership in the country, similar to Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela.
“On the very first day I came down the escalator in 2015 I said, ‘I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons,’ and all I’m doing is keeping my promise,” Trump said. “It was a threat then, and a much bigger threat now.”
