President Trump said Thursday that the US has an “armada” headed toward Iran — but that “maybe we won’t have to use it” — as he remained coy about his intentions after authorities slaughtered protesters this month.
“We have a lot of ships going that direction just in case. We have a big flotilla going in that direction. And we’ll see what happens,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One as he returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
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Trump said on Jan 2. that if Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters… the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go” — but last week he defied expectations of a massive military strike after Mideast allies urged restraint.
Trump said aboard the presidential jet that his 25% tariff on countries doing business with Iran, such as China and the UAE, would take effect “very soon.”
“We have a big force going toward Iran. I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely. I stopped 837 hangings on Thursday. They would have been dead. Everyone would have been hung. This is like from 1,000 years ago,” Trump said.
“I said, ‘If you hang those people, you’re going to be hit harder than you’ve ever been hit. It’ll make what we did to you around nuclear look like peanuts.’ And an hour before this horrible thing was going to take place, they canceled it, and they actually said they canceled it. They didn’t postpone it. They canceled it. So that was a good sign. But we have an armada. We have a massive fleet heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it. We’ll see.”
