U.S. President Donald Trump reiterates his messages to Iran regarding its nuclear program . “I would like a deal done with Iran on non-nuclear. I would prefer that to bombing the hell out of it,” he tells the New York Post. “They don’t want to die. Nobody wants to die.” He emphasized
said it would “be nice” if the Iranian issue was to be solved without Israel attacking military facilities on its territory. The American president did not rule out the possibility of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities at the time, but repeatedly signaled that he intended to promote a new agreement on the issue. Trump later said that he intended to speak with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian.
Shortly before meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House on Tuesday , the American president signed a renewal of the “maximum pressure” policy, which is intended to impose heavy sanctions on the Islamic Republic. Trump said that Iran is too close to a nuclear weapon, and warned that if Tehran decided to assassinate him in response, Iran would be “obliterated.” He said that he left “instructions” to do so in the event that Tehran did assassinate him.
Later, in a meeting with Netanyahu in front of the cameras, the American president claimed that Iran is not weak, but strong. He added that Iran was in big trouble when he left office, having no money to pay Hamas and Hezbollah. “They sold huge amounts of oil to China. They became rich very quickly,” Trump explained. He also claims that October 7 would not have happened under his leadership as well as the Russia-Ukraine war.
After the meeting, at a joint press conference with Netanyahu in which he announced his proposal to take over the Gaza Strip and displace its residents , Trump said: “During my term, I have brought peace and stability to the Middle East that they have not seen in decades. We withdrew from the nuclear agreement and imposed very harsh sanctions on the Iranian regime. We stopped Iran’s proxies and deprived them of resources.”
The American president added that he hopes that Iran will be a peaceful country. “I want Iran to be peaceful and successful. I hated doing it. I did it once before. And we brought them down to a level where they were unable to give any money. They had to survive themselves. And they had no money. They were essentially broke,” he said.
Trump stressed his objection to Iran’s nuclear efforts. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. I’m not putting restrictions. I’m not. They cannot have one thing. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. And if I think that they will have a nuclear weapon, despite what I just said, I think that’s going to be very unfortunate for them,” he said.
Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, even responded to Trump with a strong message. “If they threaten our security, we threaten theirs. If they harm the security of the Iranian people, we will undoubtedly harm their security,” Khamenei said in a speech in Tehran on Friday.