The United States military carried out another defensive strike near the Strait of Hormuz on Wednesday, taking out an Iranian ground control station and four drones that posed a threat to U.S. forces in the area.

The strike came just hours after President Trump made his position unmistakably clear during a Cabinet meeting at the White House: Iran is running out of leverage, and he will not be rushed into a bad deal.

“Iran is negotiating on fumes,” Trump told reporters, adding that he is “not satisfied yet” with the state of nuclear talks.

He also swatted away any suggestion that upcoming midterm elections would pressure him into accepting weak terms from Tehran.

The combination of live military action and Trump’s blunt public posture sends a message that should be impossible for Tehran to misread. The diplomatic window is open, but the clock is ticking, and U.S. firepower is not standing down in the meantime.

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ABC News reported on the direct exchange from the Cabinet meeting:

President Trump told reporters that Iran appeared to be calculating around the American political calendar, with Tehran hoping he would feel pressure to settle before the midterm elections. He rejected that premise in plain terms, saying he did not care about the midterms in this negotiation.

When asked whether high gas prices and travel costs made him more eager to close a deal quickly, Trump kept the focus on national security. He said the primary urgency is preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, not calming a campaign narrative or rushing into a weak settlement.

ABC News also noted that Trump said sanctions relief and money were not on the table at that moment. He said the United States still controlled funds Iran claimed as its own, and that Tehran would get access only when it behaved properly and did what was right.

The same exchange captured the central Trump position: talks can continue, but Iran does not get a shortcut around the nuclear issue. He described himself as unsatisfied with the current offer and left military escalation on the table if the regime refuses to move.

Trump went further, warning that if Iran does not meet the terms the United States has laid out, “we may have to finish the job.”

That leaves little ambiguity. That is a president telling a hostile regime exactly where the red line is.

AP laid out Wednesday’s military action near the strait:

U.S. forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that officials said posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz. The military also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was preparing to launch another drone, according to U.S. officials cited in the report.

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The new action landed inside a fragile ceasefire environment and followed earlier defensive strikes on missile-launch sites and minelaying boats in southern Iran. Washington has said those actions were restrained responses to immediate threats, even as the diplomatic track remains unsettled.

The broader deal conversation still turns on hard questions: reopening the Strait of Hormuz, neutralizing Iran’s highly enriched uranium stockpile, and preventing Tehran from using sanctions relief to rebuild military capability. Republican skeptics including Roger Wicker, Lindsey Graham, and Ted Cruz have warned that any settlement resembling the Obama-era nuclear framework would be too favorable to Iran.

The report also placed the uranium question beside the regional-security question. Iran wants Lebanon and proxy operations considered inside the ceasefire framework, while the United States and Israel are trying to preserve room for action against imminent threats.

The strike details were attributed to U.S. officials, and CENTCOM has not released a full public statement at the time of this writing.

American forces have acted defensively in the area more than once in recent weeks. The pattern is consistent: when Iranian assets threaten U.S. personnel or international shipping lanes, the military responds.

Trump’s posture on the deal itself has been just as aggressive on paper. Over the weekend, he posted on Truth Social that Iran’s enriched uranium must be “immediately turned over to the U.S. or destroyed in Iran” as a condition of any agreement.

Breitbart reported on the demand:

President Trump said Iran’s enriched uranium should either be turned over to the United States for destruction or destroyed in place inside Iran with an atomic-energy authority or equivalent witness present. That demand put the uranium stockpile at the center of the settlement conversation rather than leaving it as a vague promise to be handled later.

The report tied Trump’s demand to earlier reporting that Tehran had broadly committed to surrendering near-weapons-grade uranium, one of the key issues in the talks. It also noted the competing Iranian position that the stockpile should stay inside the country, which is exactly why the disposal mechanism matters.

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If Iran keeps control of the material, the deal looks weak and Tehran can claim it preserved the heart of its nuclear leverage. If the material is removed or verifiably destroyed, President Trump can point to a concrete result that goes far beyond paper assurances.

That is the reason the transfer-or-destroy language matters. It turns the negotiation from a public-relations promise into a measurable test of whether Iran is actually giving up the dangerous material or merely buying time.

Some Republican lawmakers have expressed skepticism about whether any deal with the Iranian regime can be trusted. That skepticism is earned. Iran has violated every nuclear agreement it has ever signed, and its proxies continue to destabilize the Middle East.

The current posture looks nothing like Obama-era diplomacy. There are no pallets of cash, no secret side deals, and no easing of sanctions before Iran delivers.

Trump is negotiating from a position of military and economic strength, and he is telling the world he is perfectly comfortable walking away.

The broader strategic picture includes the Abraham Accords framework, which Trump is working to expand. A credible Iran deal, or the credible threat of military action if no deal materializes, strengthens America’s hand with every partner in the region.

Tehran can negotiate now, under maximum pressure and with its economy under strain, or it can find out what “finish the job” means. That is the choice President Trump is offering, and there is nothing ambiguous about it.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here.

 

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