Trump says ‘you’ll find out’ if he is planning military response to Iran shooting down US drone

Donald Trump has said “you’ll find out” when asked if he was planning a military response to Iran’s shooting down of a US drone – words that appeared to be an effort to cool mounting tensions.

Speaking to reporters on the day the Iranian military shot down a US drone in the Strait of Hormuz, the president said he believed Tehran may have erred and that he believed a “a general or somebody” mistakenly ordered the attack.

Asked he was planning to respond military, he said people would “find out”. Asked he was being pressured by others in his administration, the president, who was meeting in the Oval Office with Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, said this was not the case.

“No no not at all. In fact in many cases it’s the opposite. But I will say, look, I said I want to get out of these endless wars, I campaigned on that, I want to get out. We’ve been in Afghanistan for 19 years,” he said.

“We beat the caliphate. We took back the 100 per cent of the caliphate. At 99 per cent, Justin, I said we’re going to get out we’re going to start peeling back and everybody went crazy because it was 99, and so I said all right, so we’ll finish it up. So we got 100 per cent. And we’re pulling that back out of Syria. We’re pulling a lot of people back.”

Mr Trump’s tone appeared in contrast to a number of members of his administration, among them secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security advisor John Bolton, who have adopted a hardline stance towards Iran, since the president last year pulled the US out of the Iran Nuclear Deal.

“This is a new wrinkle, a new fly in the ointment what happened, shooting down a drone,” said the president. “And this country will not stand for it, that I can tell you.”

Later on Thursday, Mr Trump was due to meet with congressional leaders to discuss the escalating feud with Iran, against which the US has imposed debilitating sanctions and reportedly launched an disinformation war. 

Earlier this week, it emerged Iran was set to breach the level of uranium enrichment set in place by the multi-party 2015 deal Mr Trump withdrew Washington from, an announcement that was seen as an attempt by Tehran to try and pressure the European signatories to the deal to help it counter the impact of US sanctions.

“Obviously we are very concerned about the escalation by Iran recently because we have a significant presence in the area, including a Nato mission in Baghdad and Iraq,” Mr Trudeau said.

“We look forward to discussing…with our closest ally, how we move forward as an international community.”

The circumstances of the shooting down of the drone, a US navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, are disputed.

Iran said the drone, with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 and costing more than over $100m, had violated its territorial airspace.

The US called the missile fire “an unprovoked attack” in international airspace. Either way, it marked the first time Iran had struck the US military.