WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday that the US military is “locked and loaded” and ready to carry out his threatened “massive attack” on Iran, but he’s “not in a hurry” as negotiations continue.
“We’re locked and loaded. We’re ready to go. But we’re talking to them. So maybe there will be, maybe there won’t be a tipping point,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“Maybe they will cry ‘uncle,’ or maybe they’ll just give up, or maybe they’ll just go into a cave and hide. You know, they have caves very deep in the ground and they can hide.”
Trump added that he sensed Iranian officials were “getting more and more serious” about reaching a new deal with the US — after a preliminary peace plan signed by the president June 17 collapsed over continued attacks by Tehran on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
“I think they’re getting more and more serious as the days go by, for maybe the obvious reason, but we are talking to them right now,” Trump said.
“We’re talking to them. So I think while we’re talking, we’ll see what comes of it,” he went on. “Despite what everyone says about the [midterm] election, I’m not in a hurry.”
Trump’s claim that talks are getting more serious comes as spiking US bond yields caused mortgage rates to increase and boosted the possibility of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve.
US and Iranian officials swapped heated public rhetoric earlier this week.
In addition to threatening greater devastation in a phone call with Axios Thursday, Trump said that any further damage to commercial ships caused by Iran would be paid for with Islamic Republic assets frozen by the US.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi issued a statement denouncing the idea, writing,:“Seizing another nation’s assets to pay for unrelated future claims is an incendiary precedent.”
“Those who celebrate or profit from such funds should remember: once governments normalize confiscation, no one’s assets are safe,” Araghchi added. “Ensuing chaos will not be pretty or peaceful.”
The renewed fighting over the weekend claimed the lives of four US soldiers, whose caskets Trump met at Dover Air Force Base on Wednesday.
Araghchi said the same day that “our defense doctrine is clear: eye for an eye.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio retorted that “ the president’s policy is a head for an eye.”
The war broadened Thursday when Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen attacked a pair of Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea, setting them on fire.
