President Donald Trump said Monday that the ceasefire with Iran is “on life support” and “unbelievably weak” after the two sides exchanged fire this weekend, with Trump labeling Iran’s peace proposal as “garbage.”
The U.S. and Iran have been at an impasse after Tehran earlier Monday dismissed Washington’s own offer as “one-sided” and accused Trump of making “unreasonable,” “excessive demands.”
The rising price of oil — the Brent crude international benchmark ticked up to $104 a barrel at noon — provides a tense backdrop for Trump’s state visit this week to China, a major consumer of energy out of the Persian Gulf.
Trump said he thought a diplomatic solution was still “very possible” because the Iranian leaders “change their mind. They’re very dishonorable people.”
He accused the Iranian leaders of agreeing to hand over their enriched uranium — a major sticking point between the two sides — before they went back on the offer.
“Two days ago, they said, ‘You’re going to have to take it,’” he told reporters in the Oval Office, saying the Iranians told him that only the U.S. and China had the capabilities to do so. “But they changed their mind because they didn’t put it in the paper” document.
Trump also dismissed criticism that he does not have a clear path to end the conflict.
“You know, people say, what’s the plan?” he said. “I have the best plan ever. It’s a very simple plan: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, and they won’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Trump had called Iran’s proposal “TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!” on Truth Social on Sunday. “I have just read the response from Iran’s so-called ‘Representatives,’” he said without giving details of what the plan contained. “I don’t like it.”
That drew a response from Iran on Monday. The Iranian Foreign Affairs Ministry accused the U.S. of “one-sided views” and “making unreasonable” and “excessive demands,” spokesman Esmail Baghaei said at a news conference. “Everything we proposed,” he said, was “reasonable and generous not only for Iran’s national interests, but also for the good and well-being of the region and the world.”
Baghaei said Iran’s offer included stopping “maritime piracy against Iranian ships” — a reference to Washington’s blockading Iranian ports. He also called for releasing “assets belonging to the Iranian people which have been unjustly frozen for years in foreign banks due to American pressure.”
And he said Iran wanted “safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz” and to establish “security and peace throughout the region, including Lebanon,” where Israel has continued attacks it says target the militant group Hezbollah despite a ceasefire.
Trump last week abandoned a short-lived plan for military vessels to escort merchant ships through the Strait of Hormuz, known as “Project Freedom.”
The two sides traded fire repeatedly in the following days, with the U.S. saying its destroyers launched “self-defense strikes” after they came under attack.
The U.S. has insisted those exchanges do not mean an end to the ceasefire, more than a month after the temporary deal that was initially intended to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
In a phone interview Friday, Trump said “no” when he was asked whether the conflict with Iran was over. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, telling told CBS News’ “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the conflict was “not over” and that if negotiations were not successful in extracting nuclear material from Iran, “we can re-engage them militarily.”
That speaks to a key sticking point in the talks: the U.S.-Israeli demand that Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium be removed from the country.
Though Iran has always denied wanting to build a bomb, it has enriched the material beyond civilian needs, accelerating those efforts after Trump tore up the previous nuclear agreement.
The U.S. has continued its own blockade of Iran’s ports, but the Iranian regime could most likely withstand a naval blockade for months, energy industry analysts and two Western officials familiar with intelligence assessments told NBC News.
