President Trump dropped a surprise on Fox News this week, and it landed straight on Tehran’s wallet. He said the United States has been taking millions of barrels of oil out of Iran every single night. According to Fox News, President Trump explained that he could finally say it out loud because the Iranians had only just figured it out. “I wanted to say it so badly,” he said, telling viewers it had been hard to keep quiet. BREAKING: The U.S. is taking "millions of barrels of oil" out of Iran every night, President Trump announces. "I'm going to tell you because they just figured it out. So now that they figured it out, I can tell you it was very hard for me. I wanted to say it so badly." "When… pic.twitter.com/sf3rucqhAj — Fox News (@FoxNews) June 10, 2026 The Jerusalem Post reported President Trump putting it even more bluntly, asking whether people knew the U.S. had been taking out millions of barrels of oil. The same report quoted him saying the U.S. took out 22 ships “the other night.” Per that report, President Trump also touched on Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the possibility of further strikes, and the recent downing of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz. Those operational details remain attributed to President Trump, Fox News, and the Jerusalem Post. But the strategy behind the reveal is not a mystery. Iran’s oil trade is the lifeblood of the regime. Treasury has said it over and over. The cash that flows from those barrels funds the regime and its armed forces, and a huge share of it runs through a shadow fleet of sanctioned tankers feeding Chinese refineries. The Treasury Department laid out that pressure campaign in a May 2026 release: Today’s action is being taken pursuant to Executive Order 13902, which targets persons operating in Iran’s petroleum and petrochemical sectors and is in furtherance of the President’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 2, which undergirds Treasury’s continued campaign of maximum economic pressure against Iran’s shadow banking, money laundering, and sanctions evasion networks. Since February 2025, OFAC has sanctioned over 1,000 Iran-related persons, vessels, and aircraft as part of this campaign. China’s independent oil refineries, colloquially known as ‘teapots,’ purchase the majority of Iran’s crude oil, providing a vital source of revenue to the Iranian regime and its armed forces. Hengli Petrochemical (Dalian) Refinery Co., Ltd., China’s second-largest teapot refinery, has emerged as one of Tehran’s most valued customers, purchasing billions of dollars’ worth of its oil products. Since at least 2023, Hengli has received Iranian oil cargoes from a host of sanctioned shadow fleet vessels, including BIG MAG, GALE, and ARES, which alone have delivered over five million barrels of Iranian crude oil. Hengli has played an outsized role in purchasing crude oil from Iran’s armed forces. That is the backdrop for President Trump’s announcement. Every barrel pulled off the board is money the regime cannot spend on weapons, proxies, or its nuclear program. This is the kind of pressure that does not show up in a press conference until the President decides it should. He kept it quiet until Iran caught on, then turned the reveal into a message of its own. The signal to Tehran is simple. The leverage is already in American hands, and the regime is only now learning how much. This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport. View the original article here. What are your thoughts? TAP HERE TO ADD YOUR VOTE