President Donald Trump has privately told aides he is prepared to wrap up the military campaign against Iran without first securing an agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, Newsmax reported, citing a Wall Street Journal account of the internal discussions. The signal marks a shift in emphasis, from the commercially vital waterway to the broader objective of dismantling Iran's ability to build a nuclear weapon.
The report landed as the president publicly projected confidence that the conflict, now in its second month, could end within weeks. In a Truth Social post Tuesday morning, Trump urged allied nations that depend on Middle Eastern oil to step up.
"Build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT. You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!"
The message was blunt: American forces did the heavy lifting. Now the countries whose economies run on tanker traffic through Hormuz need to share the burden of keeping it open.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a Monday interview with Al Jazeera, offered the most detailed public accounting yet of what the administration considers accomplished and what remains. He described four objectives and rated progress on each.
"We have very clear objectives that we're trying to achieve here. Those objectives are the destruction of their air force, which has been achieved; the destruction of their navy, which has largely been achieved; a significant reduction in the number of missile launches that they have, which we're well on our way to achieving; and we are going to destroy the factories that make those missiles and those drones that they are using to attack their neighbors and the United States and our presence in the region."
Rubio predicted the remaining work would take "weeks, not months" and said the Strait of Hormuz would be open when the operation concludes, one way or another.
"It will be open because Iran agrees to abide by international law and not block a commercial waterway, or a coalition of nations from around the world, with the participation of the United States, will make sure that it is open one way or the other."
That framing is consistent with the broader pattern of Trump's foreign-policy approach: set hard objectives, achieve them on American terms, then push allies to carry their share. It echoes the same philosophy that has driven his domestic standoffs over DHS funding, where the president has shown a willingness to act unilaterally rather than wait for reluctant partners.
When Newsmax asked the White House for comment on the Journal's report, officials referred the outlet to recent statements by press secretary Karoline Leavitt and Rubio rather than issuing a fresh denial or confirmation.
Leavitt told reporters this week that Trump "is going to move forward unabated, and he expects the Iranian regime to make a deal with the administration." She added that "the full reopening of the strait is something the administration is working towards, but the core objectives of the operation have been clearly defined for the American people by the commander in chief."
Read carefully, her words leave room for exactly the outcome the Journal described. The reopening of Hormuz is something the administration is "working towards", not a precondition for ending military operations. The "core objectives" stand on their own.
Trump himself has been even more direct. The Washington Examiner reported that the president said Iran does not need to make a deal for the war to end. His stated test: whether the U.S. determines Iran can no longer build a nuclear weapon.
"No, they don't have to make a deal with me... when we feel that they are, for a long period of time, put into the stone ages and they won't be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we'll leave, whether we have a deal or not, it's irrelevant."
The timeline is tightening. Breitbart reported that Trump said Operation Epic Fury will end within two to three weeks, possibly sooner, because "there's no reason for us to do this" once the nuclear objective is met.
"I had one goal: They will have no nuclear weapon and that goal has been attained. They will not have nuclear weapons," Trump said.
He also made clear that responsibility for securing the Strait of Hormuz should shift to the countries that depend on it for oil once American forces depart. That tracks with his Tuesday social media post telling allied nations to "go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT."
The approach mirrors the kind of decisive, unilateral posture Trump has adopted on the domestic front as well. During the prolonged DHS funding standoff, the president signed an executive order to pay TSA workers rather than wait indefinitely for Congress to act, a pattern of setting his own terms when institutions stall.
Even as the president talks about winding down, the military footprint in the region has grown. The U.S. moved the USS Tripoli and the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit to the Middle East. Trump is reportedly considering sending up to 10,000 ground troops to the region.
The Washington Times reported that 2,500 Marines and 2,500 sailors arrived in the region last week, and that Trump said the U.S. has entered "serious discussions" with Iran, predicting a deal will be reached "shortly."
The simultaneous buildup and exit talk are not contradictory. Increasing pressure while offering an off-ramp is a negotiating posture, not a mixed signal. Trump previously posted that if the Strait of Hormuz is not immediately "Open for Business," the U.S. will "conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)."
That threat remains on the table. It gives Iran a clear choice: cooperate on the strait, or face escalation before the Americans leave.
Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of ending operations before Hormuz is settled. Suzanne Maloney, an Iran expert and vice president at the Brookings Institution, told the Wall Street Journal that ending the campaign before the strait reopens would be "unbelievably irresponsible."
"Energy markets are inherently global, and there is no possibility of insulating the U.S. from the economic damage that is already occurring and will become exponentially worse if the closure of the strait continues."
Rich Goldberg, a former National Security Council official in the first Trump administration and now a senior adviser at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, took a different view. He argued that the Hormuz question resolves itself once Iran's military is sufficiently degraded.
"Once you've achieved those strategic objectives, it naturally follows" that the U.S. "would focus on the Strait of Hormuz, because you would have done so much damage to their external threat, and you would have reallocated your military resources to that mission."
Goldberg's logic aligns with the administration's stated approach. If Iran's air force is destroyed, its navy largely dismantled, and its missile and drone factories wrecked, Tehran's ability to enforce a blockade of Hormuz shrinks with every passing day. The leverage shifts, not away from the U.S., but toward it.
That is the core conservative case for the strategy. Trump's critics in the foreign-policy establishment want a tidy agreement before the shooting stops. Trump wants to break the adversary's capacity first and let the agreement follow from weakness, not from negotiation between equals. It is the same instinct that has led him to cut short conversations he considers unproductive and move on his own timeline.
Several questions hang over the coming weeks. Will Iran, whose officials have disputed the nature of negotiations, agree to any terms? Will allied nations actually step up to patrol the strait, or will they free-ride on American military power as they have for decades? And will the reported 10,000-troop deployment materialize, or will the exit come first?
The administration has not named the aides Trump spoke to or detailed the conditions under which he would declare the mission complete. Rubio's interview gave the clearest public framework, four military objectives, most of them already achieved or nearly so, but the political question of Hormuz remains deliberately open.
That ambiguity may be the point. Keeping Iran guessing about whether the U.S. will leave quietly or escalate on the way out is itself a form of pressure. Trump has shown, in theater after theater, that he prefers to keep adversaries off balance rather than telegraph his next move.
For decades, Washington's foreign-policy class treated the Strait of Hormuz as America's problem to solve. Trump is asking a simple question the establishment never wanted to hear: Why?
