US President Donald Trump says he told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to strike any more Iranian oil and gas fields after yesterday’s Israeli strike on South Pars.
“I told him, ‘Don’t do that,’ and he won’t do that. We didn’t discuss [it]. We do independent, but get along great. It’s coordinated. But on occasion he’ll do something, and if I don’t like it.. and so we’re not doing that anymore,” Trump tells reporters in the Oval Office alongside Japans’s visiting prime minister.
Israel’s strike on South Pars infuriated Qatar, which shares the gas field with Iran and came under retaliatory fire from Tehran hours later.
Trump later claimed that he had not been aware of the strike ahead of time, though both US and Israeli officials briefed reporters that there had, in fact, been coordination.
Trump again tells reporters that the war will wrap up “pretty soon,” without giving a specific timeline.
Asked whether he intends to deploy ground troops in Iran, Trump responds, “No, I’m not putting troops anywhere. If I were, I certainly wouldn’t tell you, but I’m not putting troops.”
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Thursday, March 19, 2026
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