President Donald Trump on March 30 raised the prospect of secondary tariffs and military strikes on Iran if Tehran does not reach an agreement with Washington regarding its nuclear program.
Trump reportedly told NBC News via a March 30 telephone interview that U.S. and Iranian officials are in discussions but did not offer further details.
“If they don’t make a deal, there will be bombing,” Trump said. “But there’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago.”
The remarks were made after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said on March 30 that the Islamic regime is declining direct negotiations with the United States regarding its fast-track nuclear program. The comment was his nation’s response to a letter that Trump sent Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei earlier in March.
Pezeshkian delivered the response via the sultanate of Oman, and left open the chance of indirect negotiations with the United States. Those talks have been stagnant since Trump withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 during his first term.
The possibility of U.S. military actions against Iran’s nuclear program remains on the table as the United States continues airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthi terrorists in Yemen.
“We don’t avoid talks; it’s the breach of promises that has caused issues for us so far,” Pezeshkian said during a televised Cabinet meeting. “They must prove that they can build trust.”
Iran’s rial currency has plummeted since Trump’s reelection and the resumption of his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran. Pezeshkian had left discussions with the United States on the table until Khamenei, 85, criticized Trump in February, warning that conversations with Washington “are not intelligent, wise, or honorable.”
Afterward, the Iranian president toughened his own comments regarding the United States.
Messages from Iran have been mixed for weeks, with videos from Quds Day demonstrations on March 28 showing people instructing crowds to shout only “Death to Israel!” instead of the usual “Death to America!”
In another video, disclosed by Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard, troops were seen stepping on an Israeli flag painted on the ground of an underground missile base. However, it didn’t show a U.S. flag, typically featured in similar propaganda videos.
The English-language branch of Iran’s state television, Press TV, released an article on March 22 that listed U.S. military bases in the Middle East as potential targets for attack. Those included Camp Thunder Cove on Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, where the U.S. military bases the stealth B-2 bombers likely used in Yemen airstrikes.
“The Americans themselves know how vulnerable they are,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said on March 28. “If they violate Iran’s sovereignty, it will be like a spark in a gunpowder depot, setting the entire region ablaze. In such a scenario, their bases and their allies will not be safe.”
Iran’s two most recent direct attacks on Israel with ballistic missiles and drones resulted in minimal damage, but Israel responded by decimating Iranian air defense systems.
Trump described his letter to Tehran, which arrived on March 12, in a television interview, but offered few details about what he told Khamenei.
“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,'” Trump said in the interview.
The president previously tried to send a letter to Khamenei in 2019 through Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. At that time, the Islamic leader mocked the attempt.
