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Hind Al Soulia - Riyadh - ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — US President Donald Trump threatened on Monday to hit Iran "hard" after the two countries exchanged fire for the first time in weeks, as his Treasury secretary vowed to keep up a pressure campaign aimed at hobbling Tehran's economy.
Iran launched missiles overnight at two US air bases in Jordan in response to a US attack on Iran’s Larak Island on Sunday, raising tensions in a conflict that had recently shifted into an economic standoff.
After six months of war, the archfoes remain at an impasse, with Iran keeping the strategic Strait of Hormuz closed and the US persisting with a counter-blockade of Iranian ports. While neither side appeared to be seeking a return to full-scale war, both signaled they were prepared to respond to further attacks.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” a Fox News reporter quoted Trump as later telling the channel. “There will be a response.”
The US said it attacked Iranian rocket launchers on Larak to prevent Tehran from planting mines in the key shipping lane.
Three people were killed in the US attack, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported. The state-affiliated Nournews said two of them had been identified as members of the Revolutionary Guards Navy.
Larak is a small island in the strait near the strategic Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The Strait of Hormuz, which normally handles a fifth of global crude oil and gas shipments, has been effectively blocked since the start of the war.
Iran responded with missile and drone attacks aimed at Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, saying they targeted US forces there, but President Masoud Pezeshkian later on Monday called for dialogue.
"We continue to strive for a path of agreement and understanding, and we believe that continuing the war is neither in our interest, nor in the interest of the region," he said at a summit in Kyrgyzstan, adding "the solution to the existing problems is dialogue and cooperation."
Separately, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the renewed strikes did not signal a return to full-scale war, describing Iran as a “failed nation” whose economy and military had been severely degraded. “That doesn’t mean we won’t smack them. We’ll see what happens.”
Asked whether he had ruled out using nuclear weapons against Iran, Trump said there was “no reason” to do so because Iran was already “totally defeated militarily.”
A senior Iranian source told Reuters the overnight exchanges of fire, the first since late July, were a “limited and contained confrontation” but said Tehran would deliver a harsh response if attacked again.
Trump said US air defenses had downed all Iranian missiles that could have caused any damage and that new US economic sanctions on Iran were having a big impact, Fox News reported.
Earlier, Trump had posted to social media two videos depicting explosions engulfing Iran’s main oil export terminal, with the message “Kharg island being blown to smithereens!!!“
But the videos were generated by AI and no such attack took place. Iran called Trump’s post “laughable.”
Vice President JD Vance told reporters Trump “likes to switch it up on social media a little bit” and was “sending a message.”
Washington has so far mainly held off from hitting Iran’s major oil and gas infrastructure, a move that Iran says would be met with devastating attacks against its Gulf neighbors.
Washington has, instead, stepped up efforts to punish Tehran and its business partners with “secondary sanctions” that hit third countries buying its oil.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that Iran was “lashing out” now because the new sanctions were taking a toll on its economy.
“They’re in shock at the state of their economy,” Bessent told reporters at a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bank governors in North Carolina. “I would think that they are lashing out kinetically because they are losing economically.”
Bessent told Reuters on Sunday that new secondary sanctions were likely to be unveiled weekly in the effort to pressure Iran, with an initial focus on banks.
Trump halted his “Operation Epic Fury” bombing campaign with a ceasefire in April, and the sides agreed in June on an interim framework for talks. But that failed to hold, leading to repeated exchanges of fire including two weeks of US bombing in July.
Over the past month, Washington has hoped a blockade of Iranian ports will inflict enough economic damage to force Iran to comply with US demands. Tehran meanwhile has maintained that the Strait of Hormuz is shut and will reopen only under its supervision.
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