President Donald Trump said the ceasefire with Iran is still in place after U.S. forces launched strikes in response to attacks on American warships, casting fresh doubt on efforts by Washington and Tehran to reach a negotiated settlement that would end hostilities.
Speaking to reporters during a visit to the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall, which he is having renovated, Trump described Iran’s attacks on U.S. destroyers as “a trifle”:
“They trifled with us today. We blew them away.”
Trump said a deal with Iran “might not happen, but it could happen any day. I believe they want the deal more than I do.”
The U.S.’s “self-defense strikes” came after the destroyers USS Truxton, USS Rafael Peralta and USS Mason were attacked with “multiple missiles, drones and small boats,” U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, said in a statement.
No American vessels were hit, the statement said, and U.S. forces responded by striking Iranian military facilities deemed responsible, officials said in the statement. They included missile and drone launch sites, command-and-control locations, and positions from which Iranian forces were surveilling U.S. forces and gathering intelligence, the statement said.
“Centcom does not seek escalation but remains positioned and ready to protect American forces,” the statement said.
In its own statement on the incident, reported by Iranian media late Thursday, the IRGC navy said it had launched an operation against three U.S. destroyers in retaliation for two “provocative actions” by the U.S. military. The first, the statement said, was a U.S. attack on an Iranian oil tanker the day before.
The second was the three destroyers’ approach toward the Strait of Hormuz despite clear warnings. Iranian forces responded with a “highly extensive and precise combined operation,” the statement said, involving a variety of weaponry including anti-ship ballistic missiles, anti-ship cruise missiles and drones. It said the strikes inflicted “significant damage” on the American ships.
Trump, in a post on social media, said that “there was no damage done to the three Destroyers, but great damage done to the Iranian attackers.” He added that “numerous small boats” were sunk by U.S. forces and Iranian missiles launched at destroyers were “easily knocked down.”
“They dropped ever so beautifully down to the Ocean,” Trump said of the missiles, “very much like a butterfly dropping to its grave!”
Trump said that the destroyers had transited “very successfully” out of the strait, a vital waterway for the movement of Middle Eastern oil through the Persian Gulf. The three ships, he added, will now return to enforcing a naval blockade that the United States has installed to strangle the Iranian economy as negotiations continue. Iran has claimed control over the waterway.
Throughout the war, the two sides have often given different versions of the same event. On Wednesday, Centcom said it enforced the U.S. blockade against an Iranian-flagged oil tanker attempting to reach port, disabling it by firing rounds into its rudder. Iran said on Thursday that U.S. military aircraft launched an “unprovoked” attack against an Iranian tanker but retreated “in disarray” after coming under intense Iranian missile fire.
During Thursday’s exchange of fire, Iranian state media reported that Qeshm Island — the largest island in the Persian Gulf, located near the northern entrance to the strait — came under attack late in the evening during “a fierce exchange of fire between Iranian armed forces and enemy units.”
Explosions were also reported near the coastal city of Bandar Abbas and other reports said air defense units were activated in Tehran and other cities. According to various news agencies, the attack on Qeshm was on the Bahman pier, a commercial and passenger facility. Before the war, ferries regularly plied the waters around the island.
The semiofficial Tasnim News Agency suggested that aircraft from the United Arab Emirates had been involved in attacking the pier. The UAE has suffered the most Iranian attacks among Persian Gulf countries since the beginning of the war, including one on Tuesday it said hit an energy installation and caused a fire.
The dueling attacks marked the latest in a whipsaw series of developments this week that has included the start of a new U.S. military operation on Monday to reopen the strait to commercial shipping, followed a short time later by Trump’s decision to abruptly pause the effort because peace negotiations had made “great progress.”
Trump made fresh threats against Iran on Wednesday, promising to renew bombing “at a much higher level” if the country’s leaders did not accept his latest proposal to end the war.
U.S. and Iranian officials have been negotiating a potential end to the conflict since a conditional ceasefire took hold in April, with Trump calling for Iran to end its nuclear program and reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has demanded that the administration halt a U.S. naval embargo of its ports and proposed discussing nuclear issues after the war is over.
The negotiations have appeared tenuous, with Pakistani mediators calling the situation “complicated.”
Iranian officials made no public comments Thursday about any resumption of talks. Trump said Wednesday the administration is waiting for Iran’s response to a one-page framework document, which itself was a reply to a 14-point proposal Iran sent to Washington last week.
Sporadic Iranian attacks against U.S. allies in the region have continued during negotiations. On Wednesday, UAE ambassador to the United Nations Mohamed Abushahab said that earlier in the week, a commercial vessel affiliated with the Abu Dhabi national oil company was “directly targeted.”
Abushahab joined U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz in a push for a U.N. resolution they and other Gulf countries intend to put to a security council vote. It demands Iran stop attacks, remove all mines and cease tolling ships passing through the strait.
“If a country chooses to oppose such a simple proposition, do they really want peace?” Waltz said. “Now is the time for choosing. Are the countries of the council choosing to stand with a regime that slaughters its own people, that brutalizes its neighbors, that strangles the world’s economy?”
The sponsors of the measure did not say when they planned to put the resolution to a vote. Iranian allies Russia and China both have veto power on the council.
Iran has reached out to numerous capitals seeking support in its efforts to portray the U.S. as the aggressor and demanding that the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ships from entering or leaving the strait be lifted.
In a readout of a Wednesday call between Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and French President Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian said that Macron called for a diplomatic solution to the war and “acknowledged that measures such as the U.S. maritime blockade and Israeli attacks in Lebanon constitute violations” of ceasefires in both Iran and Lebanon.
In his own readout, Macron said he had “expressed my deep concern over the ongoing escalation and condemned the unjustified strikes against Emirati civilian infrastructure and several vessels.” He said “all parties must lift the blockade of the Strait immediately and without conditions.”
Susannah George and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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