President Donald Trump has warned the Islamist regime in Tehran that if it refuses to accept his deal, the United States will once again start to bomb the country, including “every single” bridge and power plant.
U.S. peace negotiators head back to Islamabad, Pakistan, for further talks on Monday, President Trump said, as the end of the two-week ceasefire looms over the conflict with Iran.
The U.S. leader accused Tehran of a “total violation” of the ceasefire agreement by attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, just hours after publicly agreeing to leave the critical waterway open. According to President Trump, Iranian forces attacked a French ship and a freighter from the United Kingdom.
However, the president downplayed the impact of the violence, saying that ultimately Iran was helping the United States by driving ships toward America to purchase fuel.
“They’re helping us without knowing, and they are the ones that lose with the closed passage, $500 Million Dollars a day! The United States loses nothing. In fact, many Ships are headed, right now, to the U.S., Texas, Louisiana, and Alaska, to load up, compliments of the IRGC, always wanting to be ‘the tough guy!'” he wrote on Truth Social.
While JD Vance led talks earlier this month in Pakistan, there have been mixed reports on whether the Vice President will make the trip this time. ABC News’ Jonathan Karl initially reported that President Trump had decided to keep Vance back over security concerns. However, Karl later reported that Vance will, in fact, lead the negotiating team in Islamabad, citing an unnamed senior U.S. official.
President Trump said that the United States is offering Iran a “very fair and reasonable deal”, which would include the rogue regime handing over its stockpiles of enriched uranium, a demand that Tehran has so far refused to consider.
“I hope they take it because, if they don’t, the United States is going to knock out every single Power Plant, and every single Bridge, in Iran. NO MORE MR. NICE GUY! They’ll come down fast, they’ll come down easy and, if they don’t take the DEAL, it will be my Honor to do what has to be done, which should have been done to Iran, by other Presidents, for the last 47 years,” President Trump wrote of the prospective peace deal.
“It’s time for the Iranian killing machine to end!” he concluded.
While previous threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure forced the regime to agree to a ceasefire, it remains to be seen whether they will acquiesce to handing over their nuclear material.
Speaking to the Associated Press on the sidelines of a “diplomacy forum” in Turkey, Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Khatibzadeh pushed back against the “maximalist” demands from the White House.
“I can tell you that no enriched material is going to be shipped to United States,” he said. “This is non-starter and I can assure you that while we are ready to address any concerns that we do have, we’re not going to accept things that are nonstarters.”
However, separate reports have indicated that the U.S. naval blockade on Iranian ships is potentially set to cripple the country’s oil-producing sector, upon which the regime relies to function.
Due to the blockade, Iran’s storage facilities are quickly filling up and could reach capacity within as few as two weeks. If the extraction equipment were shut down as a result, the damage could be irreparable, severely impairing Iran’s oil production for years to come.