U.S. President Donald Trump said Friday that the U.S. military may soon strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain, a fortified site near Iran's Natanz enrichment facility, while trying to downplay the conflict with Iran as "small potatoes".
"We may hit Pickaxe very soon," Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to the underground facility where Washington says Iran has moved some of its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.
Meanwhile, Trump tried to downplay the conflict with Iran, arguing that it was not a war. "It's a military conflict, but it's very intermittent," Trump said, though he has repeatedly described the conflict as a "war" while avoiding the term at times.
"I call it a military conflict because it's small potatoes for us. It's not a big thing," Trump claimed.
"I would say that it's intermittent. You know, we do intermittent strikes," Trump said. "There's a lot of truth that we're not fighting right now. There's no fighting."
On Tuesday night, a U.S. strike hit a wedding party in Sirik County in Hormozgan Province, killing at least five people and injuring over 60 others, Iranian state media reported.
Trump on Wednesday threatened to launch more strikes on Iran "anytime we want".
The mountain, located near the Natanz nuclear facility in central Iran's Isfahan Province, is widely regarded as one of Iran's most heavily fortified underground installations. Analysts have long speculated that Tehran could be using the site to shield sensitive centrifuge operations from aerial bombardment.
Trump has previously suggested that Iran may have already relocated centrifuges to the mountain complex, and he has repeatedly threatened military actions against the site in recent weeks. The president's latest remarks showed his most direct warning to date of imminent U.S. military intervention.
However, Iranian officials have dismissed the American threats, insisting that the Pickaxe Mountain facility is "completely empty" and that any U.S. attack would be doomed to fail.
Trump says US may strike Iranian nuclear site soon, calls conflict "small potatoes"
China has unveiled a new plan to support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the 2026-2030 period, setting targets for business growth, innovation and the development environment.
By 2030, China's SMEs, a key pillar of economic vitality and resilience, are expected to achieve growth in both quality and scale, with per capita operating revenue of major SMEs posting cumulative growth of around 15 percent over the five-year period, according to the plan, which was jointly issued by 10 central government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
The plan sets out seven key tasks, including keeping businesses and employment stable, strengthening enterprise cultivation, accelerating digital, intelligent and green development, promoting coordinated and integrated development, improving the supply of production factors, strengthening the SME service system, and enhancing legal and policy safeguards.
The plan places greater emphasis on intelligent, green and integrated development, and adopts a more tailored approach to different industries and enterprise types. The new plan builds on progress made during the 14th Five-Year Plan until 2025, when China's SMEs saw significant improvements in business scale, innovation capacity and specialized expertise.
"The plan focuses on advancing high-quality and innovative development by establishing mechanisms to promote the growth of SMEs that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products, facilitating tiered growth of SMEs, and advancing intelligent, green, and integrated development. At the same time, it addresses practical difficulties such as talent shortages, funding constraints, and difficulties in rights and interests protection, adopting a tailored and categorized approach to help SMEs achieve steady and long-term growth," said Liang Zhifeng, director of the SME Bureau of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
"The plan encourages universities and research institutes to license scientific and technological achievements to SMEs on a use-before-payment basis, providing SMEs with opportunities to access innovation resources and advance collaborative innovation. In addition, the establishment of a tiered cultivation program for high-quality SMEs will help more of these enterprises grow into technology- and innovation-oriented SMEs, SMEs that use specialized and sophisticated technologies to produce novel and unique products, 'little giant' firms, and manufacturing champions," said Xu Yingjie, director of the SME Research Office of the Enterprise Research Institute under the Development Research Center of the State Council.
"Little giant" firms refer to the novel elites of SMEs that are engaged in manufacturing, specialize in a niche market and boast cutting-edge technologies.
Supporting SME development is among the priorities of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) for national socioeconomic development.
This year's government work report also pledged stronger support for SMEs undergoing digital and intelligent transformation.
China made notable progress in SME development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025), with more than 63 million SMEs operating nationwide by the end of 2025, accounting for over 95 percent of all business entities.
China's new five-year plan targets SME innovation, digital, green growth
