Arkansas Online – Trump claims Iran owes US compensation
President Donald Trump on Monday scoffed at Iran’s demand for reparations for devastation caused to the country by the U.S. and Israeli bombardment over the past five months — a demand he said Tehran’s negotiators hadn’t raised until now.
Trump’s social media post Monday came after Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei stressed that Iran will not reopen the Strait of Hormuz until the U.S. meets its conditions.
Tehran wants the U.S. to end its blockade of Iranian ports, lift economic sanctions and release Iran’s frozen assets. It also said the U.S. must pay compensation for war damage.
“It is up to the U.S. side to stop and make amends for its illegal and destructive actions,” Baghaei said.
Trump responded that he is now demanding “compensation from Iran, for all of the people that they have killed and gravely wounded with their roadside bombs and many conflicts.”
“We’re going to ask for money for the damage they’ve done over a 50-year period,” Trump said at the White House, saying payments would cover deaths among both civilian demonstrators and U.S. forces in the region.
“So if there’s damages to be paid, I think Iran should pay those damages,” Trump said.
Referring to Tehran’s crackdown on demonstrations in late 2025 and 2026, Trump said Iran had killed some 52,000 protesters as of six weeks ago. While some Iranian opposition and exile groups have claimed tens of thousands killed, the U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency in February reported around 7,000 deaths including 6,500 protesters.
The U.S. government has blamed Iran-backed militants for the deaths and injuries of hundreds of Americans over several decades. They include a 1983 bombing that killed 241 U.S. military personnel at a Marine compound in Beirut and the deaths of at least 603 U.S. troops in Iraq between 2003 and 2011.
“I have instructed my representatives to put this firmly into any, and all, future negotiations,” Trump said in his post.
Trump also said Iran should compensate families of the 17 U.S. sailors killed in an October 2000 attack in Yemen on the naval vessel USS Cole, which has been blamed on al-Qaeda, not Iran.
“Also, with respect to the Iran negotiations, Iran should be responsible for the damages and death caused to the people of Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Gaza!” Trump’s post said.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s traded oil supplies passed before the war — has kept energy prices as a major focus of U.S. politics ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Iran’s president said Monday the country’s supreme leader is calling for “unity and cohesion” as the Islamic Republic faces economic hardships and sanctions stemming from its war with the United States.
President Masoud Pezeshkian described a nearly seven-hour meeting with Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei in an interview with Iranian state television that aired amid apparent tensions among the Islamic Republic’s leaders.
Pezeshkian told the state-run IRIB that he and Khamenei discussed “people’s livelihoods, the state of the market, employment, people’s housing,” as well as “problems that are now being created as a result of the (U.S.) sanctions.” He didn’t say when or where they met.
Most important, he said, was Khamenei’s emphasis on unity.
“All of the enemy’s plans are aimed at creating division,” Pezeshkian said. “What we have to do is prevent divisions from emerging.”
It is only the second time the Iranian president said he has met with the new supreme leader since Khamenei was appointed in March following a U.S.-Israeli strike that killed his father. Khamenei, believed to have been wounded in the same attack, has not appeared in public since then.
Israel’s military said Monday it had declared a Christian-majority town in the occupied West Bank a closed military zone to keep out Israeli settlers and other nonresidents.
The new tactic is designed to keep Israelis out of Taybeh, which has been subject to arson, vandalism and settlers coming onto private and village property. The army said Palestinian residents and journalists would be allowed unless soldiers determine their presence poses a threat. The army said its troops would detain suspects and disperse gatherings to keep the peace.
The designation comes after months of the army and police struggling to maintain order throughout the territory, where at least 87 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in 2026, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry.
Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels attacked a Red Sea port town controlled by government forces on Sunday, killing seven and injuring 30 people. Yemen’s Defense Ministry — which operates under its internationally recognized government — said four military personnel and three civilians were killed.
Clashes continued Monday near the village of Taiz. The Houthi group said a 13-year-old child was killed by artillery shelling and another child was injured.
The attack on Mocha is the latest in one of the largest waves of Houthi strikes on Yemeni military positions and areas held by the Saudi-backed government since a 2022 truce. It comes as threats to shipping through the Strait of Hormuz have renewed focus on the Red Sea and Bab el-Mandeb Strait at its southern tip.
Information for this article was contributed by The Associated Press and Steve Holland and Jacob Bogage of Reuters.