Gregory Svirnovskiy
POLITICO / June 11, 2026
The president’s post marked his most serious threat against Iran since before the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in April.
President Donald Trump on Thursday morning escalated his threats against Iran, announcing that the U.S. intends to strike the country Thursday night and take control of Kharg Island, a strip of land home to Iran’s most important oil facility.
“The United States will be hitting Iran (Whose Navy, Air Force, Radar, Anti-Aircraft, and all other forms of Defense, together with most of its offensive capability, are GONE!), VERY HARD TONIGHT,” he wrote on Truth Social, the social media platform he owns.
The president’s post marked his most serious threat against Iran since before the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in April. It comes after U.S. forces launched airstrikes in Iran this week, with the ceasefire increasingly under strain and peace talks stalled.
This isn’t the first time Trump has taken to Truth Social to invoke dire threats against Iran since the U.S. and Israel first struck the country in late February. In April, just before the two sides agreed to the ceasefire, Trump warned that a “whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
The president’s plan to assert control over Kharg Island — a small landmass in the Persian Gulf that serves as Iran’s main oil export hub — “at some point in the not too distant future” would mark a major shift in the war effort, now well into its fourth month.
In addition to previewing new attack plans against the Middle East country, Trump said the U.S. would “assume total control of their Oil and Gas Markets, much like we have with Venezuela, which is working out brilliantly for both Venezuela and the United States of America.”
But almost immediately after making his social media post, Trump questioned whether America “has the stomach” for a larger conflict in a Fox News interview.
“I’m not sure the country has the appetite for it. Does that make sense to you?” he said. “As good as it is. By the way, as good as it is, that’s always been my number one thing. But as good as it is, I’m not sure the country has the appetite for it. And that’s it OK, I understand that.“
And the president on Thursday morning brushed aside suggestions that he’s growing impatient with Iran.
Asked on Fox News whether he was frustrated with Tehran, Trump replied: “I’m not frustrated. I don’t get frustrated.”
The president then paired his most aggressive rhetoric yet about Iran’s military position with a renewed insistence that he does not want to send U.S. troops into the country.
“There will be more bombing tonight. It will be bigger. Bigger. More powerful,” Trump said, arguing that U.S. forces have already destroyed Iran’s air defenses. “I don’t want to have boots on the ground. If I wanted to, we could put a small group of soldiers and take over the whole place.”
On Wednesday, he told reporters that the U.S. would “be attacking them very hard” in response to an American Apache helicopter that crashed near Oman on Monday after it was struck, Trump said, by Iran. The two sides have traded strikes, with Iran targeting American assets in other Middle Eastern nations.
Iran hawks cheered the escalation. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), in an X post Thursday morning, called the president’s threat “welcome news,” adding that taking Kharg Island would be the “ultimate gamechanger.”
“The combination of continuing to force the Strait open and at the same time controlling Kharg Island’s operations by force or blockade would be the most consequential move President Trump could make, regaining the dominance and leverage America needs to end this conflict on favourable terms,” Graham wrote.
Iran, Graham continued, isn’t a “reliable partner” in the negotiations to end the conflict and “at every turn” creates provocation in an attempt to obtain leverage in discussions.
Gregory Svirnovskiy is a breaking news reporter at POLITICO
Ben Johansen and Emilio Perez Ibarguen contributed to this report
