U.S. President Donald Trump said on July 11 in a Truth Social post that the American military would hit Iran “very hard tonight.” He also claimed the United States would soon seize Kharg Island and other key oil infrastructure in Iran, with the stated aim of taking full control of the country’s oil and gas market.
Trump says Iran’s defenses are already gone
In the post, Trump wrote that the U.S. would deliver a “VERY HARD TONIGHT” strike against Iran. He went on to say that Iran’s navy, air force, radar systems, air defenses, “all other forms of defense,” and much of its offensive capability were already “GONE!” The language sharply escalated attention on the Middle East and framed the coming action as both immediate and severe.
The source material did not include operational details, and Trump did not provide evidence for those claims in the post. Even so, the message was blunt. He presented the coming move as more than a military threat and tied it directly to pressure on Iran’s energy backbone.
Kharg Island named as a direct energy target
Trump’s post went beyond a same-night military warning. He said the United States would take Iran’s largest crude export port, Kharg Island, along with other oil infrastructure nodes. By naming Kharg Island directly, the post pointed at a target tied to Iran’s export capacity rather than limiting the message to battlefield operations.
He ended the post by saying the U.S. would “completely control” Iran’s oil and natural gas market, adding that it would be like what the United States had done with Venezuela and that it had worked out “very well” for both Venezuela and the U.S. That framing linked military pressure with energy control in a single statement, extending the impact of the post from security concerns to the oil and natural gas market.