President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that Iran does not have to make a deal with him for the war to end, stating that military operations against the country will cease when the United States feels that Iran can no longer build a nuclear weapon.
“No, they don’t have to make a deal with me,” Trump told reporters. “When we feel that they are, for a long period of time, put into the stone ages and they won’t be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we’ll leave, whether we have a deal or not, it’s irrelevant.”
However, the president left the door open for a deal to be made, saying it was still “possible that we’ll have a deal because they want to make a deal.”
Trump waved off the rise in gas prices, which hit a national average of $4 on Tuesday morning as a result of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, saying that they would come down when the U.S. military operations against Iran end.
“All I have to do is leave Iran, and we’ll be doing that very soon, and they’ll come tumbling down,” Trump said before going on to explain that stock prices were up.
The president projected that the war against Iran would be over “within maybe two weeks, maybe a couple of days longer to do the job.”
When asked if he was concerned about a threat from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps to attack U.S. tech and defense companies operating in the Middle East if the U.S. and Israel, a key U.S. ally, continue their attacks against Iranian leadership, Trump said “no.”
Trump has repeatedly insisted that Iranian negotiators want to make a deal to end the war and that they allowed oil ships through the Strait of Hormuz last week to show they are “real and solid,” despite public posturing from Iranian officials that no negotiations are taking place.
“Well, I guess they were right, and they were, they were real, and I think they were Pakistani-flagged,” Trump said. “And I said, ‘Well, I guess we’re dealing with the right people.’”
Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth would not rule out any option during a press briefing earlier on Tuesday, saying the U.S. would not “foreclose any option you can’t fight and win a war, to tell your adversary what you are willing to do or what you are not willing to do, to include boots on the ground.”
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The U.S. has deployed approximately 50,000 troops to the region, including thousands of Marines, sailors, and members of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, since the beginning of the war.
“Our adversary right now thinks there are 15 different ways we could come at them with boots on the ground,” Hegseth said. “And guess what? There are. So if we needed to, we could execute those options on behalf of the president of the United States and this department, or maybe we don’t have to use them at all.”
Mike Brest contributed to this report.
