Trump sending message to Iran with Kharg Island post, says JD Vance

US President Donald Trump’s social media post threatening to blow Iran’s key oil hub Kharg Island “to smithereens” was intended to send a message to Tehran, Vice President JD Vance said on Monday. Vance was responding to questions about Trump’s one-line post on his Truth Social platform, which was accompanied by an AI-generated video clip showing what appeared to be dramatic explosions at Kharg Island.

“The president likes to switch it up on social media a little bit,” Vance said. “He would be the first to say he doesn’t make announcements about military actions on social media, but I think that he’s sending a message to the Iranians.”

Trump’s post had angered Iran overnight, but there was no evidence that Kharg Island had been attacked. A US official said on Monday that American forces had not targeted the island in overnight strikes. An Iranian official dismissed Trump’s post as “laughable”.

News agency Reuters also found that the video accompanying Trump’s post was most likely synthetically generated, using software designed to detect AI-manipulated imagery. The White House and the US Defense Department did not respond to Reuters requests for comment outside regular business hours.

Kharg Island is central to Iran’s oil trade and handled about 90 per cent of the country’s oil exports before the war began with US and Israeli attacks on February 28. Any attack on the island would severely disrupt Iran’s energy exports and place further pressure on its already strained economy.

The US has carried out strikes elsewhere. A US official said American forces attacked two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, marking the first known US military strikes since late July.

Trump has yet to achieve the objectives he set out at the beginning of the war, including dismantling Iran’s nuclear programme, curbing its ability to attack regional rivals and creating conditions for Iranians to overthrow the country’s clerical rulers.