WASHINGTON — U.S. retaliatory strikes against Iran will continue after its forces shot down an American helicopter, President Trump said Wednesday, accusing the Islamic Republic of stringing him along over months of negotiations to end the war.
The prospect of a renewed U.S. air campaign cast fresh doubt on the viability of a ceasefire between the United States and Iran that has largely held since April, when the two sides reached a tenuous truce, pausing weeks of fighting. Trump’s decision to resume attacks comes after an exchange of fire between Israel and Iran threatened to spiral into open war over the weekend.
The administration has presented Trump with options to expand U.S. targets beyond the immediate area around the Strait of Hormuz to Iranian power plants across the country, an escalation that will open the president up to accusations he is targeting civilian infrastructure, according to a defense official familiar with the matter.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office, Trump encouraged the Iranians to accept a framework agreement negotiated between the two sides, and suggested that additional military action might compel Tehran to accept a final truce.
“We hit them hard yesterday, and we’re gonna hit ‘em again hard today,” Trump said. “And we’ll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along — they keep playing us for suckers.”
The president’s remarks came a few hours after Trump posted on his social media website that Iran “will have to pay the price” for taking too long in negotiating a peace deal.
When pressed by reporters to elaborate, Trump said he meant that bombing would resume but declined to say whether that would include strikes on Iranian power plants and bridges, a threat he has repeatedly issued during the war.
The ongoing conflict, which is in its fourth month, has left a mark on the global and domestic economy. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday that inflation accelerated in May, driven by a surge in energy prices linked to the war with Iran.
The consumer price index rose 0.5% on a seasonally adjusted basis — the largest monthly increase in three years — pushing the annual inflation rate to 4.2%.
Asked whether he was concerned about the inflation numbers, Trump told reporters that the “numbers were great.”
“You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why? Because as soon as this war is over…,” Trump said, without finishing the thought.
The remark prompted near instantaneous news releases from Democratic operatives, as well as the party war room, which sent out a statement accusing Trump of mishandling a reckless war that has devastated the economy in the process.
“Donald Trump’s disastrous economic agenda and deadly and costly war with Iran have made life unbearable for millions of Americans,” Kendall Witmer, the Democratic National Committee’s rapid response director, said in a statement.
“Working families are shouldering skyrocketing costs for basic goods, with their wages being eaten up by Trump’s soaring inflation,” she added. “On the campaign trail, Trump promised to ‘defeat inflation,’ and to lower costs on ‘Day One,’ but two years later, Trump can’t get a handle on his war of choice with Iran as he tanks the economy back home.”
Trump then told reporters about a secret military mission to ensure safe passage for oil tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most important commercial waterways. He said the operation had secured the passage of more than 100 million barrels of oil through the strait since it began.
“We took out, the other night, 22 ships late at night with no lights because they don’t have any radar because we blasted the crap out of it,” Trump said.
A couple of hours later, Trump wrote in another post that the military operation had been “wildly successful,” and that it proved the United States — not Iran — was in control of the Strait of Hormuz.
“Their military is defeated, and their economy is lost,” he wrote. “It’s over for Iran!”
Over months of diplomacy with Iran, Trump has sought to avoid a return to conflict, often seeking de-escalation when fighting has flared — and repeatedly pressuring Israel to minimize its attacks in Lebanon, where it continues to battle the militant group Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran.
Israeli strikes continued Wednesday, according to local news reports, while Hezbollah said it carried out attacks on Israeli troops stationed in southern Lebanon.
Speaking to journalists in the Oval Office, the president implied he was losing patience with Iranian tactics at the negotiating table.
“I gave them a break, at the request of Pakistan,” he said. “They still are working on trying them to do what’s right. But we want a deal that’s meaningful. We want a deal that works.”
“It was just tap, tap, tap,” the president added. “I don’t know what they’re doing.”