Trump Says US Will Get Highly Enriched Uranium From Iran — 'We Don't Need It, We Don't Want It... But We're Not Going To Let Them Have It'

• According to a Reuters report, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has ordered that the highly enriched uranium must stay inside the country.
• Trump noted that his administration is looking into Iran’s plans to impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, and that the U.S. has total control of the critical waterway.
• Trump also said that the U.S. has total control of the Strait of Hormuz, adding that it has been fully effective.

President Donald Trump on Thursday stated that the U.S. will recover highly enriched uranium from Iran, which is currently buried under debris following the joint strikes by the United States and Israel on the Middle Eastern country.

Addressing reporters at the White House, Trump reiterated that there is nothing more important than not letting Iran obtain a nuclear weapon.

“We don’t need it, we don’t want it, we’ll probably destroy it after we get it, but we’re not going to let them have it,” Trump added, when asked about the highly enriched uranium and what the U.S. would do about it.

Iranian Supreme Leader Says Enriched Uranium Must Stay In Iran

According to a Reuters report, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has ordered that the highly enriched uranium must stay inside the country, defying Trump.

“The Supreme Leader’s directive, and the consensus within the establishment, is ​that the stockpile of enriched uranium should not leave the country,” an Iranian source said, according to the report.

The source added that Iran’s top officials are of the belief that sending enriched uranium out of the country would leave it more vulnerable to future attacks by the U.S. and Israel.

Looking Into Iran’s Plans To Impose Tolls In Strait Of Hormuz, Says Trump

Trump said that his administration is looking into Iran’s plans to impose tolls in the Strait of Hormuz, while adding that the U.S. has total control of the critical waterway.

“We want it free, we don’t want tolls. It’s international, it’s an international waterway,” Trump said, while adding that projections show that Iran is losing $500 million a day due to the U.S. blockade.

Trump also stated that the U.S. has total control of the Strait of Hormuz and that it has been fully effective. However, according to an Al Jazeera report, the IRGC Navy stated that 31 ships have passed through the Strait of Hormuz in the past 24 hours.

Crude Oil Prices Climb

Crude oil prices climbed on Thursday. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures expiring in July rose more than 2% to hover around $100 a barrel. Brent crude futures expiring in July were up 2%, at $107 a barrel.

The United States Oil Fund ETF (USO) was up about 2% at the time of writing, while the ProShares Ultra Bloomberg Crude Oil ETF (UCO) gained 4%.

Meanwhile, U.S. equities declined in Thursday’s midday trade. At the time of writing, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY), which tracks the S&P 500 index, was down 0.36%; the Invesco QQQ Trust ETF (QQQ) fell 0.51%; and the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA) declined 0.17%. Retail sentiment on Stocktwits regarding the S&P 500 ETF was in the ‘extremely bullish’ territory.

Also See: Jensen Huang Says Nvidia Has 'Big Plans' For Anthropic — 'We're Scaling Very, Very Quickly'

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.