Speaking at a wide-ranging press conference during the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France on Wednesday, President Donald Trump went to bat for an emerging agreement between the United States and Iran, saying it would block Tehran from ever getting a nuclear weapon — and making clear that military force remains on the table if Iran breaks its word.
The deal, structured as a memorandum of understanding, is expected to receive a formal signature in Switzerland on Friday. According to US officials, the agreement was already signed electronically over the weekend, though the exact timing and format of the final signing were still being worked out as of Wednesday. The framework is designed to extend the ceasefire between the two countries, reopen the Strait of Hormuz to maritime traffic, and set the stage for further talks on Iran’s nuclear program and broader regional concerns.
“On Sunday, we reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish — everything, and much more — ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Trump said.
Throughout the press conference, the president kept coming back to what he described as the deal’s most critical element: stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
“Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. They can’t develop it, buy it. They can never have a nuclear weapon,” he insisted.
Senior US officials read the text of the memorandum to reporters on Wednesday ahead of the anticipated Friday signing. The document includes language explicitly stating that Iran will not produce or acquire nuclear weapons.
Trump drew a sharp contrast between this agreement and the nuclear deal struck during the Obama administration, which he scrapped during his first term and continued to attack throughout Wednesday’s press conference.
“The Obama deal was a road to a nuclear weapon,” he argued. “The Trump deal was a wall for a nuclear weapon that the nuclear weapon could not get through.”
While Trump indicated the deal could be finalized within days, he made equally clear that Iran’s compliance would be the deciding factor in whether it holds.
“If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, that’s all right. We go back to bombing,” he said.
The president returned to that warning several times, leaving no doubt that he views the threat of renewed military action as the key enforcement mechanism.
“If they don’t honor the agreement, we’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it,” Trump said.
When reporters pressed him on whether the deal contains formal enforcement provisions, Trump was blunt: “I let them know. I said, look, if you don’t adhere to the agreement, I don’t want to do that, but we’re going to bomb the hell out of you.”
He brushed aside concerns about the absence of formal enforcement mechanisms, saying the threat of military action is deterrent enough. “Doesn’t have to be,” he said. “They don’t want to get bombed. They don’t want to get hit.”
Trump also addressed criticism that the agreement allows Iran to keep some conventional missile capabilities. He defended that position, saying ballistic missiles are not the primary focus of the deal.
“We’ll be working on a parallel effort with the Gulf nations to address non-nuclear issues, such as the conventional ballistic missiles,” he said.
That stance puts Trump at odds with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has repeatedly called for any deal to also address Iran’s ballistic missile program. In February, Netanyahu told reporters after returning from Washington that an agreement should cover “not only the issue of nuclear weapons but also ballistic missiles and Iranian proxies in the region.”
Trump pushed back on the idea of banning Iran from missiles entirely. “What am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them? It doesn’t work that way,” he said, adding that nuclear weapons — not conventional missiles — represent the real existential threat. “Missiles aren’t the problem. Missiles are — they hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet.”
He also claimed that US military strikes had already dealt a major blow to Iran’s missile arsenal. “We knocked out probably 84%, 85% of their missiles,” he said.
Trump spent considerable time at the podium discussing his relationship with Netanyahu, offering a mix of praise and criticism. He called the Israeli prime minister “a good man” and described their partnership as “amazing,” but also expressed frustration with Israeli military operations in Lebanon.
“In all fairness to Bibi Netanyahu, who happens to be a good man, gets a little excited sometimes. But he happens to be a very good man. We’ve had an amazing partnership,” Trump said.
He acknowledged a rift with Netanyahu over the situation in Lebanon, where Israel has been striking Hezbollah targets. “We have a little dispute over Lebanon. I say, you can do a little softer touch, Bibi. You don’t have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah,” Trump said.
Referring to a specific recent strike, Trump added: “That was a big hit. That was unnecessary in my book.” He said Israel has the right to defend itself, but added: “They could behave better.”
Trump said he had shared the agreement with Israel and argued it addresses the country’s most pressing security concern. “I told Bibi, Bibi, your biggest risk was that they’d drop a nuclear weapon into the middle of Israel. They’d only need one, and there would be no more Israel,” he said. “Think of it, Bibi. You got the best — the most important thing that you were asking for is that.”
Trump also made an economic case for the deal, arguing that continuing the conflict would have caused serious damage to global energy markets. He pointed to the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz as a key benefit.
“If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two weeks, four weeks, two years,” he said. “You would never have the Hormuz Strait open.”
“Maritime traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has already increased very substantially, and the normal flow of energy will resume in the coming days,” Trump said, adding that without the deal, the world risked sliding toward economic depression.
He also defended the military campaign that preceded the agreement, including strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, saying that without the use of B-2 bombers, Iran would have succeeded in building a nuclear weapon.
“If we didn’t hit that with the B-2 bombers, they would have had a nuclear weapon,” he said.
On the international stage more broadly, Trump praised mediation efforts by Qatar and Pakistan, thanked China and President Xi Jinping for remaining neutral during the conflict, and expressed hope that the deal could lead to wider regional normalization and an expansion of the Abraham Accords. He also touched on the war in Ukraine, Ebola in Africa, artificial intelligence, energy policy, and immigration during the wide-ranging session.
Through it all, Trump kept returning to the Iran agreement as the summit’s defining achievement, calling the nuclear prohibition “the most important clause” in the deal.
“This agreement now provides Iran with a historic opportunity,” the president said. “If they follow the path of cooperation, we’ll have opened for them. Their country will have a chance to survive.”
