Trump Says It’s Not ‘Too Late’ for Iran to Negotiate on Nuclear Program, Airstrikes

The president also said, “Nobody knows what I’m going to do,” in reference to whether the United States will get involved.

President Donald Trump speaks to the press, at the G7 summit, in Kananaskis, Canada, on June 16, 2025. Reuters/Suzanne Plunkett/Pool

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that it isn’t too late for Iran to give up its nuclear program amid the conflict between Iran and Israel.

When asked whether the United States would get involved in the Israeli strikes on Iran, Trump signaled he wouldn’t answer the question publicly.

“I may do it. I may not. Nobody knows what I’m going to do,” he said.

“Iran’s got a lot of trouble,” he said, adding that the country now wants to negotiate.

“You would’ve had a country,” Trump said, referring to Iran.

He said Iran wouldn’t come to the table to negotiate on its nuclear program before a 60-day deadline passed last week, leading to the Israeli strikes. Israeli officials have long said Iran is working to enrich uranium to produce nuclear weapons, which they view as an existential threat to their country.

A reporter pressed Trump on whether “it’s too late now” to deal with Iran. Trump said that “nothing’s too late.”

Trump then joked that the “only thing too late is Powell. Powell is too late,” referring to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and the president’s criticisms of the Fed for not initiating a cut in interest rates.

Trump’s comments came during an event on the White House South Lawn to watch the raising of a new flagpole, which the president said he was purchasing for the building.

During the event, the president was asked about Iranian leader Ali Khamenei’s warning on Wednesday that U.S. strikes targeting Iran would “result in irreparable damage for them,” and that his country would not heed Trump’s call for unconditional surrender.

“I say good luck,” Trump said when asked about the supreme leader’s statements, which were made through state-run media.

In a post on social media platform X, Khamenei also wrote, “The US President threatens us. With his absurd rhetoric, he demands that the Iranian people surrender to him. They should make threats against those who are afraid of being threatened. The Iranian nation isn’t frightened by such threats.”

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have said Israel’s airstrikes on Iran are meant to destroy the country’s capacity to produce a nuclear weapon. They also said intelligence shows the regime was close to building one. Trump has echoed those comments and denied a previous statement from U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard that Iran wasn’t close to producing a weapon.

Trump previously called for Iran’s surrender and suggested that Israel and the United States know where Khamenei is located and could kill him in an airstrike.

The International Atomic Energy Agency, a U.N. agency, confirmed that two Iranian centrifuge production facilities were hit in Israeli airstrikes. The confirmation came a day after the agency said Israeli strikes last week had damaged Iran’s Natanz nuclear facility.

“The IAEA has information that two centrifuge production facilities in Iran, the TESA Karaj workshop and the Tehran Research Center, were hit,” the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a social media post on Wednesday.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.