Tag: iran

Trump: There Could Be a Future Where U.S. Energy Companies Operate in Iran

President Donald Trump said there “could be” a future where American energy companies are operating inside of Iran in response to a question from Breitbart News on Saturday.

Trump spoke to reporters for just over three minutes on the tarmac of Palm Beach International Airport before boarding Air Force One and departing for Miami.

When Breitbart News asked if he envisions a future where American energy companies are operating inside of Iran, much like Venezuela, he said, “Could be.”

“Could be. It could be. I’ll tell you what, we have a lot of ships coming up to Texas and Louisiana. It’s a line of ships,” he said. “You saw the satellite. We have a line of ships; big ones. Two million barrels, and they’re coming up. I mean, literally hundreds of ships are in line to go to Texas. I mean, they’re already started, but we’re selling a lot of oil. A lot of oil.”

Before taking any questions, Trump said that Iran desires a deal.

“[We’re] doing very well with regard to Iran. Again, they want to make a deal. They’re decimated. They’re having a hard time figuring out who their leader is. They don’t know who their leader is because their leader is gone…their former leader,” he told reporters, referring to Ali Khamenei, who was killed at the beginning of Operation Epic Fury.

The president’s gaggle with reporters came soon after reports surfaced from Iranian state media that Iran had countered a 9-point U.S. proposal for a deal to end the war with their own 14-point plan.

Trump said he had not yet read the proposal but would do so aboard the short flight on Air Force One to Miami.

“I’ll let you know about it later,” he said.

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Trump Says Not Worried About Depletion of US Arms Stocks Amid Iran Conflict

US President Donald Trump on Friday dismissed concerns about depleting US weapons stocks due to the armed conflict with Iran.

On April 21, Trump said that the ceasefire agreement between the United States and Iran was positive as it allowed the US military to replenish its ammunition stocks.

“We have more than double what we had when this started. I am not worried,” Trump told reporters when asked about reports that White House officials are worried about a significant reduction is the US inventory.

On Monday, The Atlantic reported, citing two senior Trump administration officials, that Vice President JD Vance has on several occasions raised questions, behind closed doors, regarding the Department of War’s depiction of the conflict with Iran, and whether the Pentagon has been objective in its assessments of US missile stockpiles.

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Soon Comes The Mother of All Supply Shocks

It’s getting pretty hard to tell who is more delusional: The Donald or the noisy boy band of school-yard incompetents that surround him.

Either way, it’s not surprising that Trump posted this missive earlier today. He apparently actually thinks that his cockamamie Iranian War, which is on the edge of stalemate or actually being lost, is nearly all over except for the shouting.

Of course, it’s no mystery as to where the Donald is getting his utterly misplaced optimism. To wit, almost every POTUS of modern times – financially challenged or solid in his own right – has had a strong Secy of the Treasury to keep him tethered to reality.

After all, Herbert Hoover had the outstanding Andrew Mellon. FDR finally got himself anchored down by the capable Henry Morganthau. And General Eisenhower, who was himself no slouch on fiscal matters, had the rock solid midwestern banker, George Humphreys.

Likewise, economics were not JFK’s strong suit, but all matters financial were second nature to his Treasury Secretary, Douglas Dillon. And even after his screw-ups at Camp David, Nixon turned to the brilliant Bill Simon, while the peanut farmer from Georgia had the world class industrial CEO, Michael Blumenthal at the Treasury post.

Contrary to the main stream stereotype, Ronald Reagan was actually deeply learned on economic matters, but even then he had the exceedingly capable Jim Baker at the Treasury during this second term. Similarly, Clinton had Wall Street titan Bob Rubin and G. Dubya Bush had the exceedingly capable Paul O’Neill.

Not the Donald. The first time around he had a Goldman Sachs nepo baby, Steven Mnuchin, whose economic policy grounding was as razor thin as the Donald’s. And now he’s got former George Soros, trainee, Scott Bessent, who apparently fancies himself to be a big think strategist, who actually doesn’t know shit from shinola on most matters within his brief.

So in even more declarative terms than the Donald, Bessent now tells us that the Iranian’s are literally days away from waving the white flag of surrender because he and the Donald have constipated their oil wells with the naval blockade.

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Hormuz: Who Is Calling The Shots?

I’ve been trying to make sense of what’s going really on with the war on Iran. The US says it is blockading the Straits of Hormuz to destroy Iran’s economy, but it risks destroying the world economy, including its own, in the process. So, let’s have a look and see if we can make any sense out of it. Take it up in the comments.

Picture this: it’s the end of April 2026, and the world is holding its breath over the powder keg in the Persian Gulf. After a whirlwind of airstrikes, naval showdowns, and shadowy proxy battles, it has simmered into an uneasy ceasefire, but the air crackles with the threat of explosion. What kicked off as a thunderous US-Israeli assault on 28 February is now a high-stakes game of chicken, where nobody’s blinking. Western headlines scream of taming a rogue regime, Iranian voices roar defiance, and powers like Russia, India, and China shake their heads at the chaos rippling across the globe. At the epicentre? The Strait of Hormuz, where only about ten ships a day are making the passage through it, way less than a tenth of normal traffic. 

And just what is Donald Trump’s strategy. Is he out to crush Iran? Or China? Is he creating his own new world order based on US hegemony? Or is he handing globalist elites at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and their UN Agenda 2030 playbook a golden opportunity to reshape the world into the Global government tyranny they desire? 

Let’s rewind to the fireworks. The war erupted when Trump, fresh off a 60-day ultimatum for Iran to scrap its nuclear ambitions and ditch its proxies like Hezbollah and the Houthis, imitated joint strikes with Israel. Tehran lit up under the bombs and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed. Trump’s strategy was, he said, crystal clear: regime change, pulverise Iran’s missiles, sink its navy, wipe out its air force, neuter its terror network, and slam the door on any atomic dreams. But Iran didn’t follow the script, fought back effectively, and oh so predictably closed the Straits. By early April, a fragile two-week truce kicked in and on 7 April Iran eased tanker access through Hormuz, the US paused the pounding and Trump stretched it indefinitely on 21 April, bragging that 75% of targets were toast. And then, after calling the Iranian regime a bunch of gangsters for closing the Straits, the US imposed its own, very much reducing traffic and directly ordering around 40 ships to turn back and putting shells into at least one of them. But still, there’s no grand deal in sight. Iran’s rebuffing US demands for ironclad nuclear handcuffs and talks in places like Islamabad have hit the skids after Iran refused to accept America’s demand for capitulation and Trump yanked his envoy at the last minute.

Western sources paint a picture of gritty impasse. “An awkward limbo of ‘no war, no peace’,” as the NYT quips, with diplomacy derailed and both sides digging in like a modern Somme. The Guardian captures the frustration: a “deepening sense of deadlock” despite frantic regional shuttle diplomacy. Trump keeps dangling the phone line to Tehran; “Call if you want to talk” but insists no nukes, period. Casualties? Murky as ever, though US brass concedes Iran’s still got plenty of punch left in its missile and drone arsenals.

In Tehran it’s a tale of grit and grievance. PressTV and IRNA frame this as a brutal US-Israeli bulldozer trampling sovereign soil—day 57 of invasion by 25 April, no less. Iran’s pushing “workable frameworks” for peace, but with teeth: demands for war reparations from Gulf neighbours over wrecked bridges and power grids, like the Karaj-Tehran lifeline. Their 10-point blueprint? Crack open Hormuz, lift the US naval stranglehold, but only if the West coughs up real security pledges. No more nuclear grovelling without it. And the warnings? Chilling. Tehran vows “mayhem” on Israel and the US if the truce snaps, teasing “new surprises” in its arsenal. Even US senators are calling the whole mess “disastrous,” with failed bids to leash Trump’s war powers stacking up.

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Trump presented with RISKY secret Iran plan using US ground troops as oil prices plunge global economy into chaos

Donald Trump may escalate the Iran war by sending ground troops to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and deploying special operations forces to seize the nuclear materials the regime needs to build a bomb.

The President’s top military advisers are set to brief him on new options for military action designed to force Iran back to the negotiating table and end the war.

CENTCOM’s secret plans include using ‘short and powerful’ strikes on Iranian infrastructure to force Tehran to show more flexibility on ending its nuclear program, according to Axios.

It would amount to the most intense US combat activity in Iran since the beginning of the month, when Americans staged a high-stakes rescue of downed crew members. 

One plan Trump is expected to review calls for reopening commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz with US ground troops. The passage, which transits one-fifth of all global oil shipping, has been stalled for seven weeks.

Another strategy the President will hear involves using special forces to enter Iran and recover its stockpile of highly enriched uranium. During prior negotiations, the regime refused to hand over the nuclear material to the US.

After peace talks stalled earlier this month, Trump imposed a naval blockade on all Iranian ports in the Gulf.

Tehran, meanwhile, has shut down oil shipping lanes by attacking tankers with speedboats and laying sea mines in the strait.

Trump’s new pressure campaign to reopen the strait comes as the global oil market has plunged into chaos, driving US gas prices to their highest level per gallon since 2022.

US gas prices rose another 7 cents on Thursday to $4.30 for a gallon of regular, the biggest one-day jump in prices since the start of the war. 

Gas is now at its highest price since the consumer inflation crisis of July 2022, according to the data from AAA. 

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US wants to use hypersonic missile on Iran. Problem is, it may not work.

The U.S. is mulling using its first hypersonic missile against Iran — even though it may not yet be ready for battlefield use.

CENTCOM says it needs to deploy the “Dark Eagle” missile against Iran because it has been forced to move its launchers out of range for Washington’s Precision Strike Missile, which the U.S. is now running low on, according to a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Although it completed some successful tests in 2024, the Dark Eagle repeatedly failed to launch during other tests because of launcher and production quality issues. An unnamed defense official told Fox News that the weapon has reached “initial operational capability,” but the Pentagon testing office says it won’t have enough data to evaluate Dark Eagle’s combat effectiveness until early 2027.

The request comes amid a deadlock in U.S.-Iran talks that could spark a return to all-out war. President Donald Trump has pledged to maintain a blockade of Iranian shipping in the Persian Gulf, but Iran says it will only come to the table if the U.S. lifts the siege.

As Jennifer Kavanagh, senior fellow and director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, told RS, the possible Dark Eagle deployment “suggests that the Pentagon has lost all perspective.”

“Iran is not an existential threat, and the United States should not be expending its highest-end missiles there no matter what,” Kavanagh said. “The unit cost per missile is $41 million or so. Are any targets in Iran worth this much?”

Another expert observed that a deployment soon might help the Dark Eagle get more funding for next year’s defense budget.

“How do you know it is defense budget season in Washington? An unnecessary push to deploy a not-yet-fully-operational hypersonic missile against Iran,” Kelly Grieco, Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center, wrote on X. “Nothing says ‘fund me’ like first use, I guess.”

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Iran War Cost $25 Billion in First 2 Months, Pentagon Says

Combat operations against Iran have cost the U.S. military about $25 billion in two months, a top Pentagon accounting official told House Armed Services Committee members on April 29.

The Wednesday hearing marked the first time Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine have testified publicly to Congress since U.S. and Israeli forces commenced attacks on Iran on Feb. 28. U.S. and Iranian forces exchanged fire for about five and a half weeks before the parties entered into a ceasefire agreement on April 8.

Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), the ranking member on the committee, asked the Pentagon to account for the costs of U.S. munitions expended as well as for equipment destroyed in the course of the fighting.

Jules Hurst, the acting War Department comptroller, estimated those costs at about $25 billion.

Hurst said munitions accounted for most of it, but said he also factored in operations and maintenance and equipment replacement costs. Hurst joined Hegseth and Caine at the hearing, as Congress weighs military funding requests for fiscal year 2027.

The Trump administration has been working on submitting a supplemental funding request to Congress to cover the war’s costs, but has yet to finalize it or settle on an exact figure.

“We will formulate a supplemental through the White House that will come to Congress once we have a full assessment of the cost of the conflict,” Hurst said.

The Pentagon is already seeking a $1.5 trillion military and defense spending budget for fiscal year 2027. The request amounts to a 42 percent increase over fiscal year 2026 military spending, which totaled approximately $1.03 trillion.

Among other items, the Trump administration’s 2027 military budget request seeks $52.9 billion to boost procurement for 12 weapons systems that the Pentagon has classified as critical munitions.

In March, President Donald Trump announced he had met with the CEOs of BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon parent RTX Corp., Boeing, Honeywell, and L3Harris Technologies to discuss boosting their munitions production levels. Weapons produced by the companies—including the Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile defense systems and offensive weapons like the Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile—have featured heavily in the Iran war.

Beyond the immediate material costs to replace weapons and equipment, the Iran war has also disrupted global oil and gas flows out of the Middle East, leading to rising prices for consumers.

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Corn Belt Politicians Are Using High Gas Prices To Push Even More Carveouts for Ethanol

With the average price of gasoline in the U.S. reaching its highest level since the start of the Iran war, lawmakers are thinking about giving energy producers special treatment to supposedly cut costs at the pump.

As part of the negotiations over the Farm Bill, which is expected to be voted on by the House of Representatives this week, a bipartisan group of Corn Belt lawmakers is proposing a measure to authorize the sale of E15—gasoline with an ethanol content up to 15 percent—year-round. This fuel is typically not allowed to be sold in the summer months because it evaporates easily, which contributes to air pollution and smog. (The Trump administration waived requirements last month to allow for E15 to be sold this summer, citing high gas prices.)

The proposed amendment would also limit blending exemptions for small refineries under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS)—the federal law that requires refiners and fuel importers to ensure that a certain percentage of the transportation fuel sold in the U.S. comes from renewable fuels, the most common of which is ethanol. Compliance with the RFS is estimated to cost refineries about $70 million in both 2026 and 2027, according to the energy consulting firm Turner, Mason & Company.  

“At a time when consumers are acutely sensitive to energy prices, this amendment represents a pragmatic solution that balances energy affordability, rural economic strength, and regulatory certainty,” said a coalition of agricultural and energy groups in a support letter for the measure. Additionally, its reforms to RFS exemptions “will help restore transparency and predictability for all parties subject” to that law. 

It doesn’t seem like “all parties” are on board. 

Last week, the National Corn Growers Association published a press release calling out a group of “oil corporations” for attempting to “derail legislation that lowers fuel prices.” 

“There is a tiny minority of major energy corporations – like Delek U.S. Inc., Cenovus Energy, CVR Energy, HF Sinclair, Parr Pacific Holdings and Suncor Energy Inc. – that are masquerading as small refineries to get Renewable Fuel Standard exemptions they don’t need,” said the association’s president, Jed Bower. “Their greedy actions are holding up legislation that would help farmers who are struggling during tough economic times.”

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Trump warns Iran oil infrastructure could ‘explode’ as blockade halts exports

During an appearance on Fox News’ “The Sunday Briefing,” President Donald Trump asserted that Iran’s oil infrastructure is currently on the brink of a catastrophic failure that could materialize within the next three days.

He attributed this imminent collapse to a U.S. naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz, which has effectively halted the nation’s ability to export its primary commodity.

Trump further explained that while Iranian facilities continue to produce oil, the lack of viable export routes has left the surplus with nowhere to go, creating immense physical and logistical pressure on the country’s internal storage and pipeline systems.

“When you have, you know, lines of vast amounts of oil pouring through your system, if for any reason that line is closed because you can’t continue to put it into containers or ships, which has happened to them — they have no ships because of the blockade — what happens is that line explodes from within, both mechanically and in the earth,” the president said.

Trump also warned that if these detrimental failures occur, the country will have to spend vast amounts of time and money rebuilding the impacted infrastructure, and other issues could still linger.

“It’s something that happens where it just explodes. And they say they only have about three days left before that happens. And when it explodes, you can never, regardless, you can never rebuild it the way it was,” Trump said.

Analysts believe that Iran could be forced to shut down its oil fields as early as April 29th due to the blockade, which could also impact the crude production long term.

“In other words, it will always be, if you rebuild it, it’s hard to rebuild it all, but it would only be about 50% of what it is right now,” Trump said, emphasizing that he believes Iran is ‘under pressure’ because of the situation.

Forced to divert its oil to onshore tanks, Tehran is quickly running out of storage, as the tanks are only able to hold so much, since its exports have been halted.

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Report: Iran Using Russian and Chinese Technology to Improve Drone Accuracy

Defense analysts and security officials told The National on Monday that Iran is “relying on Chinese and Russian-made guidance chips” to improve the accuracy of its drone and missile attacks.

“Key to the advance is special computer chips designed for sophisticated navigation systems placed in Iran’s Shahed drones and its ballistic missiles,” the report said.

These chips allow Iran’s drones and ballistic missiles to employ Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) communications, which protect the attack vehicle from electronic jamming.

CRPA is an antenna system that skips rapidly between different frequencies and signal sources to defeat jamming attempts. Combined with refinements to the navigational software of a drone or missile, CRPA antennas help remotely-guided vehicles to operate in dense electronic warfare environments that would be overwhelming for less sophisticated communications systems.

CRPA only works if the remote vehicle has been equipped with very sophisticated electronics to handle inputs from multiple onboard antennas and external transmitters, adjusting on the fly to spoofing and jamming attacks.

According to The National’s report, the Iranians acquired such chips recently from its patrons in Russia and China and rapidly began upgrading its weapons, which allowed them to perform much better than the missiles and drones Iran launched at Israel in 2024. It also seems likely that Iran enjoyed targeting assistance from Russian satellites and ground stations this time around.

“CRPA allows drones and missiles to filter out jamming signals and lock onto genuine satellite data. That means they can stay on target even in heavily defended airspace. It’s a capability that, until recently, was largely confined to more advanced military powers,” a Western official told The National.

Other analysts pointed to Iran’s lucrative exchange of drone technology with Russia, during which Iran initially supplied Russia with huge numbers of its inexpensive Shahed kamikaze drones to overcome Ukraine’s advantage in drone warfare. The Russians later began building their own versions of the Shahed, with technological improvements, and sent some of the knockoffs back to Iran.

Durham University astrophysics professor Bleddyn Bowen noted that China may also be supplying Iran with access to the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS), China’s version of the Global Positioning System (GPS). China’s version of GPS is much more accurate than Russia’s, which is known as Glonass.

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