US President says he would consider imposing secondary tariffs on Iran should the Islamic Republic fail to agree to a deal on its nuclear program. “I can’t imagine them doing anything else but making a deal. The alternative is not going to be pretty, and I do not prefer that.”
US President Donald Trump said on Sunday he could consider imposing secondary tariffs on Iran should the Islamic Republic fail to agree to a deal on its nuclear program.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said, “The secondary tariffs on Iran, we’ll probably give it a couple of weeks, and if we don’t see any progress, we’re going to put them on. We’re not putting them on right now, but if you remember, I did that six years ago, and it worked very well, to put it mildly.”
Criticizing his predecessor, Trump said that former President Joe Biden “didn’t know what he was doing, obviously, and we have a very very rough situation in the Middle East because of that. You ended up with October 7th, and you would have never had October 7th, and you would have never had Russia going into Ukraine likewise.”
He continued, “We’re going to make a decision on secondary tariffs on Iran based on whether or not they’re going to make a deal. If they’re going to make a deal, then we’re never going to put secondary tariffs on. We can hope they have a great, long, and successful life as a country. But we’ll see what happens.”
“I can’t imagine them doing anything else but making a deal,” Trump added. “I would prefer a deal to the other alternative, which I think everybody in this plane knows what that is, and that’s not going to be pretty, and I do not prefer that.”
Earlier on Sunday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian officially announced that Tehran has rejected direct negotiations with the United States over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
The decision marks Iran’s first formal response to a letter from Trump, which was delivered to Iran’s Supreme Leader through Oman.
While Pezeshkian left the possibility of indirect negotiations open, he indicated that such efforts have made little progress since Trump’s unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. “We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian stated during a televised Cabinet meeting. “They must prove that they can build trust.”
Trump later sent another threatening message to the Iranian regime, warning there would be “bombings” if the Islamic Republic does not accept a nuclear deal. Speaking to NBC, the President warned, If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing — and it will be bombing the likes of which they have never seen before.”
In response, Iran’s state-controlled Iranian newspaper Tehran Times wrote in a post on X that Iran’s missiles are “loaded onto launchers in all underground missile cities and are ready for launch.”
