Donald Trump made Ahmad Vahidi an, er, interesting offer as Air Force One left China’s airspace. More accurately, Trump reiterated his previous offer, which is what makes it interesting, especially in the context of the summit with Xi Jinping.
The Michael Corleone offer would have been more appropriate, but …
Still, Trump’s supposed offer to Vahidi hasn’t actually changed since the start of the ceasefire. Politico reports that Trump wants to stick with a fully verified moratorium on nuclear development and enrichment for 20 years, along with the surrender of all highly enriched uranium (HEU), as well as free commercial traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. That would be enough for the US to end hostilities, Trump said today:
President Donald Trump on Friday said a 20-year moratorium on Iran’s nuclear program would be enough for him to strike a deal and end the war.
The allowance for Iran to enrich uranium at any point in the future — even decades out — marks a shift for the president, who has repeatedly insisted that the country never be allowed to do so.
Politico is flat-out wrong on this point. Trump has floated the 20-year moratorium several times publicly, likely at the behest of Pakistan, as a means to get the IRGC to negotiate the nuclear-weapons issue at all. Last week, the US reportedly made the offer officially in Trump’s 14-point framework as part of the effort to make Islamabad II happen. That prompted some criticism that the US and Israel may end up with another useless JCPOA rather than a real end to Iran’s nuclear threat, although that offer also included the requirement to surrender the “nuclear dust.”
This isn’t a shift at all. In fact, it’s a warning that the situation hasn’t changed after Trump’s trip to China. The US position did not change while engaging with Xi Jinping. Trump even emphasized that he would not allow a JCPOA-style benign neglect on verification, even if the Iranian regime actually changed positions and started negotiating in good faith on its nuclear program:
“Twenty years is enough but the level of guarantee from them is not enough,” he said about Tehran’s latest offer. “In other words, it’s got to be a real 20 years.”
The president said he looked at the latest proposal from Iran and threw it away, adding: “If they have any nuclear of any form, I don’t read the rest of it.”
The 12-day war destroyed Iran’s ability to enrich new material for the foreseeable future, though it retains a stockpile of roughly 440 kilograms of highly enriched uranium that Washington is pressing it to surrender.
According to Trump, China offered to help get the HEU out of Iran, either diplomatically or directly with its own personnel. Xi and his team made a point of not mentioning Iran directly and of not making an issue of the US military action there, while contradicting Vahidi and calling for the Strait of Hormuz to operate as an international waterway. Those are signals that China won’t come to Vahidi’s rescue, although whether Vahidi recognizes that is another question entirely.
Now that the summit with Xi has concluded, Trump indicates that he’s not inclined to be patient for much longer. If Vahidi won’t take the deal Trump has offered repeatedly, Trump warned that he would have to finish the job of annihilating the regime, a task he reluctantly paused out of respect for the Pakistanis:
Trump on Iran: “We may have to do a little cleanup work because we had a month-long ceasefire.” pic.twitter.com/GpgssdZG3w
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) May 15, 2026
While still in Beijing, Trump made the warning more explicit in his interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity:
President Donald Trump is holding firm on Iran, according to comments he made during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday while visiting Beijing, China. The president boasted of the United States’s military success in the war and suggested a bleak outlook for the future of the Middle Eastern country. And when discussing the future of the conflict, Trump appeared to offer Iran an ultimatum.
“They’re finished,” Trump told Hannity regarding Iran. “Now they can make a deal or they get annihilated. I don’t want to do that.”
The president mentioned how Operation Epic Fury against Iran had allegedly decimated Iran’s military, which, in turn, would make it difficult for them to challenge the U.S. He suggested that it was only a matter of time before Iran was ultimately defeated.
“They have no navy,” Trump said. “They have no air force. It, it’s all, it’s, it’s gone. It’s just a question of time. If we want, we stopped. Could have gone for another few weeks it would have been over. Uh, I did that at the request of a lot of leaders that are friendly with them. Uh, it’s not going to matter for them.”
The American media’s takeaway from the Beijing summit is a lack of a grand trade bargain, which is fair in part but misses the big picture. American action against Iran has changed the assumptions about what Trump might do in a standoff over Taiwan, and Xi is now much more concerned about dealing with that than Iran. The lack of direct commentary from the CCP about Iran after the summit, along with Trump’s warnings during and after the summit, make it pretty clear that Trump got Xi to stay out of the way with Iran.
That itself is a large win for Trump. What he does with it will be a different matter.
