“Very easy. If we have a deal with them, we’re going down and we’ll take it ourselves.”
That was President Donald Trump responding to a reporter’s question outside Air Force One on March 23 of how the U.S. would retrieve Iran’s highly enriched uranium that it had told U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff was enough to make 11 nuclear bombs, prompting the U.S. and Israeli military offensive to remove its capacity to deliver such a weapon via missile or by air or sea.
That is, there could be a deal to end the war — and Iran’s nuclear threat once and for all — with Tehran apparently agreeing to end all uranium enrichment programs, and to hand over the uranium it already enriched from its prior efforts.
The President explained, “We want no enrichment, but we also want the enriched uranium… If this happens, it’s a great start for Iran to build itself back and it’s everything that we want. And it’s also great for Israel and it’s great for the other Middle Eastern countries, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, all of them, Kuwait, and Bahrain in particular. So, it’s great for all of them.”
When asked what else would be in the deal, Trump said, “We’re looking for all of the things that we’ve been talking about. We want to see no nuclear bomb, no nuclear weapon, not even close to it, lowkey in the missiles. We want to see peace in the Middle East. And we want the nuclear dust. We’re going to want that, and I think we’re going to get that. We’ve agreed to that. Yeah, we’re we’ve agreed to that.”
As a result of the talks, Trump had announced earlier on Truth Social that he was postponing military strikes on Iran’s nuclear power plants. But there’s still a deadline: Five days.
Meaning, the President’s art of the deal is back in play.
First, Trump signaled an irreversible escalation by threatening to blow up their power plants, ending even the country’s civilian nuclear power capacity, knocking its power grid. Suddenly, somebody in the government there started talking and the President agreed to return to the table.
As a result, oil markets immediately moved into sharp correction, with light sweet crude down to $88 a barrel and Brent crude down to $96 a barrel, with each down about 10 percent, showing normalcy can come to markets faster than many have anticipated, with long-term high prices appearing to disappear in an instant.
Trump said, “the price of oil will drop like a rock as soon as a deal is done. I guess it already is today.”
But that volatility could still reemerge if a deal cannot be had — as could the President’s threat to act against Iran’s electricity generation.
As Trump warned, “We’re doing a five-day period. We’ll see how that goes. And if it goes well, we’re going to end up with settling this. Otherwise, we just keep bombing our little hearts out.”
Still, the President sounded hopeful peace could be had: “[W]e have a very serious chance of making a deal. That doesn’t guarantee anything. I’m not guaranteeing anything. I’m not going to come out here in a week or two weeks and have you all say, ‘Oh, you said’ — didn’t say anything.’ All I’m saying is we are in the throws of a real possibility of making a deal. And I think uh if I were a betting man, I’d bet for it, but again, I’m not guaranteeing anything. They want to make a deal very badly.”
And with the U.S. having restored its credible threat of force, it appears the President is not bluffing. It’s one of those instances where doubting Trump — is dangerous. Better to not find out.
Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
