President Donald Trump insisted he would not agree to a “crummy agreement” with Iran on Wednesday as he threatened to launch additional strikes there — while publicly pressuring Arab allies to also meet U.S. demands.
As the conflict Trump started in Iran verges upon the three-month mark, the president used a Cabinet meeting to insist he had maximum negotiating power with Iran and was not under pressure to make a deal.
The remarks sharply contrasted with comments by administration officials over the weekend saying that a deal with Iran was “95% there.”
“We’ve been doing this for a few months. Vietnam lasted 19 years. Korea lasted eight years. Afghanistan lasted many years,” Trump said when asked what the time frame is for the war ending. Earlier in the meeting, he said, “They were all many, many years. And we’re into it for a few months.”
He also highlighted the number of U.S. deaths in the war, 13, touting that the number has remained lower than in past U.S. wars.
Trump said he believed that Iran is “starting to give us the things that they have to give us,” without elaborating. “And if they do, that’s great, and if they won’t, then the man on my left is going to finish them off,” he said, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Even as he reiterated maximum U.S. negotiating positions, Trump pushed up the pressure on his ostensible allies among Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, saying that he might refuse a deal with Iran if Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Kuwait did not sign on to the Abraham Accords — an agreement reached in his first term that aimed to normalize relations between Israel and longtime adversaries in the Middle East.
“I think they owe that to us, to be honest,” Trump said.
Although the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined the accords during Trump’s first term, the prospect of other Arab states joining has been significantly dimmed by Israel’s war in Gaza.
The president also appeared to criticize Oman’s negotiations with Iran over possible fees on ship traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, saying that “nobody is going to control” the strait and that it would be “open to everybody” under the deal he is pushing.
“Oman will behave just like everybody else,” or the United States would have to “blow them up,” he said at one point.
The effective closure of the strait in recent months has caused a global spike in the price of oil and has driven up gas prices significantly in the U.S. While calling for the strait to be reopened, Trump also declared Wednesday that the U.S. has so much of its own oil that “we don’t … need the strait. We don’t need anything.”
And he said he would not be “comfortable” allowing Russia or China to take control of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, another proposal that has been floated as Trump has called for the country to give up its nuclear stockpile.
He further added that the U.S. is “not talking about any easing of sanctions” against Iran or releasing frozen assets before Iran meets U.S. demands to relinquish its enriched uranium.
Trump also spoke extensively about his plans for construction projects in Washington, including his effort to resurface the Reflecting Pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall.
“I love construction. It’s very exciting,” he said.
As they have in other Trump Cabinet meetings, department heads lavished flattery on the president. After Trump had talked about the Reflecting Pool, Hegseth compared the president to George Washington and Abraham Lincoln for his willingness to tackle major problems.
The night before, Trump had canceled a trip with his Cabinet to Camp David set for Wednesday, citing forecasts of bad weather as the reason he would not make what would have been a rare visit to the rural presidential retreat.
The compound in Thurmont, Maryland — the site of historic diplomatic summits and huddles by past administrations ahead of major military action — has not been a frequent destination for Trump compared with other presidents of recent decades.
The president convened his national security team at Camp David in June 2025, two weeks before the U.S. launched strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.
Recent public polls have shown Trump’s approval hitting a second-term low as voters have soured on his handling of the economy — an issue that had been a strength for him during his 2024 campaign — and say they disagree with his decision to go to war with Iran.
Although Trump and other administration officials claimed over the weekend that the U.S. and Iran were on the verge of an agreement to end the war, there were few signs in recent days that a deal was imminent. On Monday, military officials confirmed that the U.S. had launched “self-defense” strikes on Iran, which Iran condemned and called a violation of the ceasefire.
A recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that the war with Iran remains deeply unpopular with Americans. The war received approval ratings as low as those found during peak periods of military deaths during the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the poll found.
Independent voters’ disapproval of the Iran war coincides with Trump’s worsening popularity overall.
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