President Donald Trump is sharpening his message to Iran as crucial negotiations approach to end hostilities, cautioning that the country’s leaders are in a position of weakness while trying to exploit global shipping routes. “The Iranians don’t seem to realize they have no cards, other than a short-term extortion of the World by using International Waterways,” Trump wrote Friday on TRUTH Social.
Trump’s comment highlights growing frustration in the U.S. regarding threats to vital maritime routes, especially the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial chokepoint that carries a significant portion of the world’s oil supply. “The only reason they are alive today is to negotiate!” Trump added.
The president also wrote “Their Navy is gone, their Air Force is gone, their Anti Aircraft apparatus is nonexistent, Radar is dead.” He noted further that Iran’s missile and drone infrastructure has been “largely obliterated,” along with the weapons themselves, and said the country’s longtime leaders “are no longer with us.”
A senior U.S. delegation is preparing for direct talks led by Vice President JD Vance and including Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and senior adviser Jared Kushner. They are scheduled to travel to Pakistan, where they will meet with Iranian officials for discussions on Saturday.
“The only thing they have going is the threat that a ship may ‘bunk’ into one of their sea mines,” he wrote, adding that “all 28 of their mine dropper boats are also lying at the bottom of the sea.”
“We’re now starting the process of clearing out the Strait of Hormuz as a favor to Countries all over the World,” Trump said, listing China, Japan, South Korea, France, and Germany. Trump also said that multiple large tankers are enroute to the U.S. “to LOAD UP with Oil.”
Sen. John Fetterman told Fox News host Jesse Watters Thursday evening that much of the U.S. media was “carrying water” for Iran, likely to spite President Trump, though he refused to call out his fellow Democrats for the same thing.
Watters asked, “Senator, do some members of your party think Trump is more dangerous than the Iranians?” – a question that stems from criticism of the president over the murderous and terrorism-supporting regime in Tehran, despite the fact that Democrats have joined Republicans in condemning Iran’s nuclear weapons pursuits for decades.
“I can’t speak for my other Democrats, but the American media has, essentially, become — carrying water for Iran,” Fetterman said. “And they’re describing the kinds of circumstances, then they forget the way Iran has behaved.
“And why can’t we just call what Iran has been — and what it continues to do, those things? America is the force of good in the world, and holding Iran accountable, what they’ve done, is important,” he said.
Fetterman delivered a combative defense of U.S. military operations in Iran during a heated exchange last month with with former Daily Caller staffer and current CNN host Kaitlan Collins — and at one point bluntly told her, “You don’t have to cut me off here.”
Fetterman appeared on The Source as fallout continued from a Feb. 28 Tomahawk missile strike that hit the Shajarah Tayyebeh elementary school building in Minab, southeastern Iran. Iranian reports claim at least 175 people were killed, most of them children.
A preliminary U.S. military investigation later found the strike resulted from faulty targeting intelligence based on outdated data provided by the Defense Intelligence Agency. The intended target was reportedly an adjacent Iranian base.