US President Donald Trump has described the ongoing military confrontation with Iran as “small potatoes” for the United States, insisting that the fighting does not amount to a full-scale war.
Trump made the remarks on Friday while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office after Vice President JD Vance declined a day earlier to describe the conflict with Iran as a war.
“A lot of people don’t call it a war. I call it a military conflict because it’s small potatoes for us. It’s not a big thing,” Trump said.
He compared the confrontation with Iran to the US military operation in Venezuela, noting that American forces had suffered no deaths in that operation.
“In Venezuela, we lost nobody, and in this we lost 18 people,” Trump said, contrasting the figure with the much larger American death toll recorded during the Vietnam War.
Trump said he considered the confrontation an “intermittent” conflict, arguing that the US was not currently engaged in continuous combat with Iranian forces.
“I would say that it’s intermittent. You know, we do intermittent strikes,” he said.
The president added that there was “a lot of truth” to Vance’s position that the United States was not currently fighting a war with Iran, saying, “We are not fighting right now. There is no fighting.”
However, Trump’s remarks came as tensions remained high following renewed US strikes on Iranian military targets and continuing disruption to commercial shipping around the Strait of Hormuz.
The United States has said its recent military operations targeted Iranian air defence systems, radar installations, naval assets, communications facilities and infrastructure associated with Iran’s ability to interfere with shipping through the strategic waterway.
Trump claimed that the United States had established strong control over the Strait of Hormuz.
“We are taking on a lot of oil. We control the Hormuz Strait. We control it very strongly,” he said.
The president also indicated that further military action against Iran remained possible, specifically raising the prospect of a strike on the heavily fortified underground facility known as Pickaxe Mountain.
“We may hit Pickaxe very soon,” Trump said, adding that the US knows the people operating at the site.
Pickaxe Mountain is located near Iran’s Natanz nuclear complex and contains deeply buried tunnel facilities. Trump has previously threatened to target the site as Washington seeks to prevent Iran from rebuilding its nuclear capabilities.
Trump also defended the broader US military campaign, saying the United States had prevented Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
“They’re not going to have a nuclear weapon. That’s what we did,” he said, arguing that Iran possessing such a weapon would pose a grave threat to Israel and the wider Middle East.
The remarks followed Vance’s appearance at a White House briefing on Thursday, where he similarly rejected describing the confrontation as a war.
Vance said major combat operations had ended after several weeks, although fighting had periodically flared up. He maintained that the immediate US priority was protecting commercial shipping from Iranian attacks in the Strait of Hormuz.
He declined to give a timeline for the end of the confrontation, saying its continuation depended largely on whether Iran stopped attacking commercial shipping. He also said Washington was not currently negotiating with Tehran while those attacks continued.
The conflict has nevertheless entered its seventh month and continues to carry significant consequences beyond the battlefield.
US military operations have resulted in American casualties, while disruptions around the Strait of Hormuz have affected global energy markets and pushed oil prices higher.
The latest escalation has also drawn scrutiny over civilian casualties.
US authorities are investigating a strike on a wedding gathering in southern Iran earlier this week that killed five people and injured dozens.
A Reuters analysis of verified imagery and expert assessments concluded that the damage was likely caused by a direct hit from a US munition, although Washington has not accepted responsibility for the incident.
Trump’s characterisation of the confrontation as “small potatoes” therefore comes as his administration attempts to portray the conflict as a limited military operation rather than an open-ended war, despite continued US strikes, Iranian attacks on shipping and the presence of tens of thousands of American troops in the Middle East.
The president did not provide a timeline for ending the confrontation and instead left open the possibility of further US strikes against Iran.