Time is running out for Iran to make a deal, President Donald Trump warned Wednesday, as he urged the Islamic Republic to negotiate on nuclear weapons or face the force of a “massive armada” of American ships.
“Like with Venezuela, it is, ready, willing, and able to rapidly fulfill its mission, with speed and violence, if necessary,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, adding that the fleet was “moving quickly, with great power, enthusiasm, and purpose.”
Trump said the fleet, which is headed by the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, was larger than the one he sent to Venezuela, in a reference to his naval blockade of the South American country to prevent sanctioned oil tankers from leaving.
The Lincoln and its attending ships arrived in the Middle East on Monday, a U.S. official said.
Trump first warned that an American “armada” was heading toward Iran on Friday, after several weeks of deadly mass protests rocked the country.
More than 6,000 people were killed in the demonstrations across the country including the capital, Tehran, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said Tuesday. The group says that it verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran and that its data goes through “multiple internal checks.”
Iran’s government put the official death toll at 3,117 last week. NBC News could not independently verify either figure.
Hours after Trump's latest comments, a senior adviser to Iran's supreme leader warned that "a limited strike is an illusion."
"Any military action by the United States, from any location and at any level, will be considered the start of a war," Ali Shamkhani said, according to state-run news agency, IRNA. "The response will be immediate, comprehensive and unprecedented. The aggressor, the heart of Tel Aviv and all those who support the aggressor will be targeted."
Tehran has also called Trump’s repeated suggestion that his threats halted the planned executions of more than 800 protesters “completely false.”
Trump who previously said that such killings would be a trigger for him to launch military action made no mention of the protests in Wednesday's Truth Social post. But he said that “time is running out” for Tehran to come to the table and “negotiate a fair and equitable deal — NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS — one that is good for all parties.”
He also warned that the next attack would be “far worse” than the U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities last summer. “Don’t make that happen again,” he added.
Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal with Iran during his first term in office in 2018, three years after the Islamic Republic agreed to halt its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and to allow for international checks on its facilities — in exchange for moves by the U.S., several other countries and the United Nations to roll back sanctions that had crippled its economy.
Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations said on X that the country was “ready for dialogue” but would defend itself if pushed.
In a separate post on Telegram, Mahmoud Nabavian, the deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament’s National Security Commission, said recent U.S. actions and threats of a possible attack on Iran are only “part of the enemy’s psychological warfare.”
