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President Trump defended the memorandum of understanding reached by the U.S. and Iran at a press conference to close out the Group of Seven summit in France, while warning that the U.S. military could resume bombing if a broader deal isn’t struck within 60 days.
Speaking over the course of more than an hour in Évian-les-Bains on Wednesday, the president said there will be a ceremonial signing of the agreement within a day or two.
“Just in case you have any question, we’ll be giving this out, so you can read it, and you can see, and it’s a memorandum of understanding. If it doesn’t get done in 60 days, that’s all right. We go back to bombing,” he said. “I don’t want to do that, because it’s so good, but we might have to, because we’re never going to let them have a nuclear weapon.”
As he was speaking, senior U.S. officials were briefing reporters on the memorandum, reading its 14 points aloud. Under its terms, the U.S. and Iran agreed to an “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts.” The deal says the U.S. will drop its embargo against Iran and work “to terminate all types of sanctions.” Tehran, meanwhile, “reaffirms they shall not procure or develop nuclear weapons,” according to the memorandum.
Vance said on “CBS Mornings” that the agreement would reopen the Strait of Hormuz “immediately” and provide a framework “whereby if the Iranians give us what we need on stopping the funding of terrorism, on no longer pursuing a nuclear weapon, then they can get some benefits, be reinvited into the world economy.”
At his press conference, the president said active fighting could resume if Iran doesn’t comply with the terms of the deal.
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“If they don’t honor the agreement or some things aren’t even mentioned in the agreement, it’s a memorandum of understanding, but we have an understanding of certain things without writing it,” he said. “And if they don’t honor that, we’ll probably go back to bombing them until they honor it, you know? It’s amazing what bombs can do.”
Mr. Trump thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for “an extremely successful G7 summit.”
“And this meeting could not have come at a better time,” he said. “On Sunday, we reached an agreement with Iran that achieves everything we set out to accomplish, everything, and much more.”
Mr. Trump spent the last two days meeting with G7 and G7-allied leaders, from Macron to United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
“The past two days have provided a chance to discuss the details of this historic agreement with many of our closest friends and allies, including the G7 nations and many presidents and prime ministers, as you saw,” the president said. “They are thrilled that we made a deal, every one of them. There’s not one nation that came to us and said, ‘Please sir, keep dropping bombs on them.'”
The president also touted his decision to assassinate Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani in 2020, and criticized President Barack Obama for his own deal with Iran in 2015. Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018, and Iran ramped up its enrichment of uranium.
Mr. Trump also again criticized Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu over Lebanon, saying Israel doesn’t “have to knock down a building every time somebody walks into it that’s from Hezbollah.” He said Lebanon has been “disrespected incredibly,” and Lebanon’s prime minister will be coming to the U.S. over the next week or two.
Mr. Trump said he told Netanyahu: “Bibi, your biggest risk was that they [Iran] drop a nuclear weapon into the middle of Israel. They’d only need one. And there would be no more Israel. Think of it, Bibi, you got the best, the most important thing that you were asking for.”
He also thanked Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin for being “neutral” in the war with Iran.
The president told reporters Iran will “work closely” with the U.S. to hand over enriched material that’s deep in the “bowels of the earth.” But he offered no timeline for doing so.
“Nobody can get it. So it’s not important that we do it quickly,” he said. “But we could do it fairly quickly. When we get a chance, we’ll do it.”
Mr. Trump will have dinner with Macron at the Palace of Versailles in the evening before flying back to Washington. But he indicated that he might stay overseas for the signing ceremony for the Iran memorandum.
