US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will begin talks with Iran following the recently agreed ceasefire between Israel and Iran.
Speaking at the NATO summit in The Hague, Trump said, “We’re going to talk to them next week. We may sign an agreement. I don’t know. To me, I don’t think that’s necessary.” He added that he might seek assurances from Iran that it won’t pursue nuclear weapons, though he believes Iran is not moving in that direction: “They’ve had it.”
Reflecting on the end of the 12-day conflict between Israel and Iran, Trump declared, “We think it’s over. I don’t think they’re going to be going back at each other.” He described both nations as “tired and exhausted” from the intense and violent fighting.
“They fought very hard, and they were both satisfied to go home,” he said, though he acknowledged the possibility of future flare-ups.
Commenting on the Iranian missile strike on the US base in Qatar, Trump confirmed that all 14 missiles were intercepted.
“They were very nice. They gave us warning. They said, ‘We’re going to shoot them. Is 1 p.m. okay?’” he added, noting that the base was evacuated in time except for the gunners.
PUTIN TALK
On Russia, Trump responded to speculation that President Vladimir Putin may have ambitions beyond Ukraine. “It’s possible,” he said. “I know one thing: he’d like to settle. He’d like to get out of this thing. It’s a mess for him.”
ZELENSKYY MEETING
Trump also spoke about his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, describing it as cordial. “It was very nice, actually. We had little rough times, but he couldn’t have been nicer,” he said. While a ceasefire was not discussed, Trump said he plans to speak with Putin to explore ways to end the conflict.
TREMENDOUS THINGS ACCOMPLISHED AT NATO SUMMIT
Highlighting outcomes of the NATO summit, Trump said a major achievement was convincing allies to increase their defense spending to 5% of GDP—something he claimed “no one thought possible.”
He praised this as a “monumental win” for the US, which he said had been bearing more than its fair share. He emphasized that the additional funding should be directed toward military hardware, and that Europe taking more responsibility for its own security could help prevent future conflicts like the Russia-Ukraine war.
TRUMP COMPARES US IRAN STRIKE TO HIROSHIMA
Earlier, US President Donald Trump compared the impact of American strikes on Iranian nuclear sites to the end of World War Two on Wednesday, arguing that the damage was severe even though available intelligence reports were inconclusive.
His comments followed reports by Reuters and other media outlets on Tuesday revealing that the US Defense Intelligence Agency had assessed that the strikes had set back Iran’s nuclear program by just a few months, despite Trump and administration officials saying it had been obliterated.
“The intelligence was … very inconclusive,” Trump told reporters while meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte ahead of a summit in The Hague.
“The intelligence says, ‘We don’t know, it could have been very severe.’ That’s what the intelligence says. So I guess that’s correct, but I think we can take the ‘we don’t know’. It was very severe. It was obliteration,” Trump added.
SUCCESS OF IRAN STRIKES CRUCIAL FOR TRUMP
Trump has an uneasy relationship with the US intelligence community, and the success of the strikes is politically critical to him.
His right-leaning supporters had argued loudly beforehand that such military intervention was inconsistent with Trump’s domestic-focused “Make America Great Again” agenda and his promise to avoid foreign entanglements.
Trump has countered by insisting that Iran must never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon – a line that an accurate, decisive attack would support.
Trump said the US strikes were responsible for ending the war between Israel and Iran and compared them to the United States’ use of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which brought an end to World War Two in 1945.
“I don’t want to use an example of Hiroshima, I don’t want to use an example of Nagasaki, but that was essentially the same thing. That ended that war. This ended the war,” Trump said.
Trump argued that Iran’s nuclear deal had been set back “basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again” and he turned to top advisers to reinforce that message.
HEGSETH AND RUBIO REINFORCE TRUMP’S MESSAGE
Trump, who arrived in the Netherlands late on Tuesday for NATO’s annual summit, was sitting beside Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who both also cast doubt on the reliability of the DIA assessment.
“When you actually look at the report – by the way, it was a top secret report – it was preliminary, it was low-confidence,” Hegseth said. “This is a political motive here.”
He said the FBI was investigating a potential leak. Rubio suggested that those responsible for sharing the report had mischaracterized it, saying: “This is the game they play.”
All three men criticized media reports about the intelligence assessments.
At the summit, NATO member states were set to announce their joint intention to raise defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product.
While some countries have suggested they may not in fact reach that threshold, the Trump administration has pointed to the expected commitment as a significant foreign policy victory.
