Trump reportedly orders plans to hit Iran energy sites with Mother of All Bombs

The order reportedly covers the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, aimed at energy infrastructure if combat resumes

President Trump has reportedly ordered plans drawn up to strike Iran's energy infrastructure with the Mother of All Bombs, the largest non-nuclear bomb in the US arsenal, should he order a renewed round of combat operations.

The reported plan marks a sharper and more specific turn than the rhetorical escalation that has defined this cycle for weeks, moving past Trump's repeated talk of Iran "not doing well" and conflict needing to "finish up" toward a named weapon aimed at a named kind of target. It also sits uneasily beside Trump's own pledge that no attack would come before the November 3 midterms, leaving open whether the plan is contingency preparation for afterward or a sign that the deadline is softer than stated.

The tension it would escalate has been building for weeks. Iran's Foreign Minister Araghchi has said the Strait of Hormuz was supposed to be fully reopened, the latest lapse in a pattern of reopening timelines agreed and then missed. Secretary of State Rubio has said what Iran is doing against commercial ships has not been seen before, and Iran's navy has said a tanker it calls a violator caught fire in the strait. Israeli fighter jets have been exercising in Iraqi airspace near the Iranian border, with any renewed operation expected to wait until after the Israeli and US midterms.

Crude is trading higher on the back of the standoff. USO is up 1.58% in trading today, to $163.15 a share, after Iran denied progress in talks, with falling crude inventories adding to the move. Targeting energy infrastructure rather than military sites points toward the kind of supply disruption that has driven that risk premium through the Hormuz standoff all month, which is the exposure anyone holding crude or crude-linked positions is now pricing against.