President Donald Trump tamped down expectations that he would eventually decide on a deadline to force Iran into a peace deal.
“Never a deadline. It’ll happen,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during an event touting an upcoming UFC event on Wednesday. “It’ll happen, but never a deadline.”
A fragile ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran continues despite a tense day of attacks from Iran against U.S. naval forces and the United Arab Emirates. The president paused “Project Freedom” and claimed he would open the Strait of Hormuz to all nations if Iran accepted a peace deal.
Trump previously extended the original two-week ceasefire deal last month and has repeatedly refused to give an exact timeline by which peace must be reached, or hostilities will restart. But he has claimed Tehran is weakened and will eventually cave.
“They want to make a deal badly, and we’ll see if we get there,” said Trump. “They can’t have nuclear weapons.”
“We’ve had very good talks over the last 24 hours, and it’s very possible that we’ll make a deal,” Trump also said.
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Trump has repeatedly insisted that a key tenet of a peace deal is that Tehran can’t have nuclear power capabilities, which he reiterated on Wednesday while discussing Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit with Pope Leo XIV this week.
“As far as the Pope is concerned, it’s very simple whether I make him happy or I don’t make him happy, Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said. “And he seemed to be saying that they can. And I say they cannot, because if that happened, the entire world would be hostage, and we’re not going to let that happen. That’s my only message.”