President Donald Trump stated in a wide-ranging CNBC interview that Iran has come around to accepting nearly all of what the United States has demanded in peace negotiations, while characterizing Tehran as a dramatically weakened power.
Despite the optimistic tone, Trump offered no specifics about what concessions Iran had actually made. The talks are still in their early stages, with both sides still at odds over the Strait of Hormuz — the critical shipping lane that Iran shut down at the outset of the conflict, sending shockwaves through the global economy.
“We’re negotiating, and we’ll see,” Trump said during the interview.
Trump pushed back on characterizing the ongoing conflict as a traditional war, stating, “This is not a war per se. This is the denuking of Iran.”
He argued firmly that Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons, calling the country “a spoiled child” and labeling it “the bully of the Middle East.”
“You’ve had your way for many years with your parents, and all of a sudden they come down hard on you, it takes you a little while to get used to it,” Trump said. “They’ve had their way for 47 years.”
Throughout the interview, Trump painted a picture of Iran’s military as having been gutted. “They have no navy, they have no air force, they have no radar, their leaders are all dead,” he said. “Their strength is gone, their bravado is gone.”
He also pointed to a U.S. naval blockade as a driver of severe economic pain inside Iran, saying, “They have 300% inflation, they’re making no money.”
Trump defended the targeted killings of Iranian leadership figures, arguing the strikes had brought more level-headed individuals to power and amounted to a form of regime change.
“We’re on the third set of leaders, and we actually get along with them,” he said, referring to those who came to power following the strikes. “I think they’re much more rational. By the way, I think that’s regime change, but I’m not looking for regime change. I’m looking for something very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”
The president also repeated a claim he has made before — that under any future peace deal, Iran would buy agricultural goods from the United States.
“They’re making no money, so we’re going to take some of the money, and we’re going to buy them. They need food. They need corn and wheat and soybeans, and we’re going to have exclusively our American farmers provide,” Trump said.
However, Iran’s central bank governor, Abdolnaser Hemmati, told the Iranian news outlet Tasnim last month that “there is no obligation to buy agricultural inputs from the US,” pushing back on that assertion.
