❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump revealed that the United States is prepared to destroy Iran’s Kharg Island oil export hub, but has opted not to act on it for now.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), and Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Statements were made on Sunday aboard Air Force One, following CENTCOM’s precision strikes on Kharg Island on Friday.
💬KEY QUOTE: “We can do that on five minutes’ notice. We have it all locked and loaded and ready to go if we want to do it.” — President Trump.
🎯IMPACT: The destruction of Kharg Island would be crippling for both Iran and its strategic allies, like China, and would likely roil global energy markets.
The U.S. military is prepared to strike and destroy all of Iran‘s Kharg Island—the Islamic Republic’s key oil export hub—President Donald J. Trump warned on Sunday aboard Air Force One. President Trump added that he has thus far not chosen to act in such a decisive manner, but, notably, the U.S. military did take out radar and military infrastructure on the island on Friday.
“We can do that on five minutes’ notice. We have it all locked and loaded and ready to go if we want to do it,” Trump said of Kharg’s possible destruction, continuing, “We chose not to do it. I chose not to do it again. We’ll see what happens.”
Trump stated that Iranian leaders want to “negotiate badly” but that the Islamist regime is not yet ready to meet U.S. demands. The destruction of Kharg Island would be crippling to Iran and to its chief ally, China. The island allows Iran to utilize a single deep-water port and petroleum facility for the export of its oil. A bulk of Iranian oil is destined for markets in China.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has denied that regime has made any requests for a ceasefire or negotiations. “We are ready to defend ourselves as long as it takes,” Araghchi said, adding, “[T]his is what we have done so far, and we [will] continue to do that until President Trump comes to the point that this is an illegal war with no victory.”
On Friday, U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) carried out a precision strike on Kharg Island as part of Operation Epic Fury. The attack targeted over 90 military sites, including naval mine storage facilities and missile bunkers, while sparing the island’s oil infrastructure, according to CENTCOM.
It is believed that President Trump has discussed the possibility of seizing Kharg Island outright with military leaders, a move that one U.S. official described as potentially delivering “an economic knockout of the regime” by cutting off a key source of Iran’s oil revenue. However, such action could necessitate deploying U.S. troops and provoke further Iranian retaliation against Gulf oil infrastructure, particularly in Saudi Arabia.
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