U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reiterated on Saturday that the Trump administration will only conclude a “great deal” with Iran and warned that failure to reach such an agreement could lead to renewed military action.
“Any deal that the president is willing to make, he’s only going to make it if he believes it’s a great deal for our country and the security of the world,” Hegseth said.
“Only one president was willing to lay it out on the line and ensure after 47 years that Iran is not capable of having a nuclear weapon,” he continued. “Those goalposts haven’t shifted at all, which is the expectation of the American people and what we’ve stated to Iran.
“So, in the middle of negotiations, the closer they come to that reality—both now and into the future—the closer we’re going to get to that kind of a deal,” added Hegseth.
“They can either do this now through a deal, and we think we’re in a good place to make that deal, or they can deal with the War Department. And we are prepared—we’re postured even stronger today than we were on day one—to address it that way if we have to. But he [President Trump] would prefer not to.
“Iran knows very, very clearly what our expectations are, and that’s on the negotiating team to deliver. They’re coming in our direction; the talks have been productive. I think they know where it needs to go, and I’m quite confident with our president,” he said.
President Donald Trump stated on Friday that he was lifting the U.S. naval blockade on Iran and that he was meeting in the White House Situation Room to “make a final determination” on an agreement with the Islamic Republic.
“Iran must agree that they will never have a nuclear weapon or Bomb,” the president stated on Friday. “The Hormuz Strait must be immediately open, no tolls, for unrestricted shipping traffic, in both directions.”
The Islamic Republic must remove all of the mines in the strait beyond the “numerous” ones that the United States hasn’t already removed “with our great underwater mine sweepers,” Trump said.
He added that the “enriched material, sometimes referred to as ‘nuclear dust,’ which is buried deep underground with virtually collapsed mountains, caused by our powerful B2 bomber attack 11 months ago, sitting on top of it, will be unearthed by the United States,” which, he said, “it is agreed, is the only country, along with China, with the mechanical capability of doing so, in close coordination and conjunction with the Islamic Republic of Iran, plus the International Atomic Energy Agency, and destroyed.”
