President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the U.S. would “pretty soon” strike Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, the underground facility suspected of housing components of Tehran’s nuclear program.

The president made the comments from the Oval Office while welcoming Lebanese President Joseph Aoun for a meeting about the ongoing U.S.-led talks between Israel and Lebanon. Trump was asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Israeli intelligence shared with the U.S. indicated that Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into its clandestine Pickaxe Mountain site last fall.

“I think that they may have [moved the centrifuges],” Trump said. “It doesn’t mean anything unless they have the [nuclear] material. They don’t have it. We follow the material. That’s where the action is.”

“We’ll be hitting that area probably pretty soon. There’s not a thing they can do about it,” he continued. “Normally, I wouldn’t say that. If I thought they could do something about it, I would never say that, but we’ll be hitting that area pretty soon, and very heavily.”

The president predicted that it would take Iran between 20 to 25 years to rebuild its nuclear program if U.S. forces immediately ceased striking Iranian nuclear targets, though he noted that the U.S. was “not finished at all” in Iran and was “not leaving right now.” 

He added that Iran “wants to meet desperately” with the U.S. to end the war “because they’re getting decimated,” but “until they’re ready to meet in a meaningful way, we have no interest in meeting with them.” 

Joining Trump for his meeting with Aoun were Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. 

On the subject of Lebanon, Trump told reporters that he was willing to speak to Hezbollah’s leaders directly to advance peacemaking efforts with Israel. 

“I would speak to Hezbollah. I speak to everybody. I’ll speak to people that a lot of people think I shouldn’t be speaking to and things work out,” Trump said. “If [Aoun] wanted me to speak to Hezbollah, you know he’s lived with Hezbollah for a long time, and if the president wanted me to speak to Hezbollah, I would.”

Trump praised Aoun directly and detailed his own affinity for Lebanon, telling reporters that the U.S. is “going to help [the country] a lot” and describing the U.S.-Lebanese relationship as “very good.” 

“I think that Lebanon has been a very mistreated country for a long period of time,” Trump said.

The president said that he planned to discuss with Aoun Israel’s ongoing troop withdrawal from southern Lebanon and ways to empower the Lebanese Armed Forces.

“We’ll be speaking about that today with the president, and we have some very concrete plans already in store for that with others going in and helping,” Trump said. “But they’re also becoming much more self-sufficient, and we will be speaking about that.”