Trump’s so-called calculations are ruthless: using 50,000 U.S. troops as bargaining chips to pressure Iran into making concessions—he genuinely can’t bring himself to withdraw from this Middle East chess match.

According to CoinWorld, NBC News reports that Trump stated that even though he believes Iran's defensive and offensive capabilities have been severely weakened, the temporary ceasefire agreement is fragile and often broken, there are currently no plans to withdraw U.S. troops from the Middle East. "We have completely destroyed their military strength," he said. "They still have some missiles and drones." He also added that he believes Iran now has only about 21% to 22% of its pre-war missile stockpiles. But this does not mean that the 50k U.S. soldiers deployed in the region will be returning home soon. Trump said, "Leaving them there costs very little." He later added, "I think doing that (withdrawing U.S. troops) is foolish because we might be able to use the U.S. military presence" to pressure Iran into concessions at the negotiating table.