Despite occasional flashes of tough talk, President Donald Trump is committed to making a peace deal work with Iran — with one major exception that could jeopardize the process, according to a new report.
Trump has said privately that if Iran oversteps when it lashes out in what have become frequent attacks on U.S. bases and allies and kills U.S. troops, then all bets are off, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The report says Trump’s broader goal appears to be “to avoid a broader conflict in the Middle East.”
Recent days have seen Iran attack Kuwait, killing one person and damaging its airport, saying its attacks were a response to U.S. actions against Iranian military forces that broke the rules of the tattered ceasefire that has been in place for about two months.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said the U.S. will end anything Iran starts.
“They are happening in response to an Iranian action,” Rubio said in a House hearing Wednesday. “If they don’t shoot at those ships, we don’t shoot, but we have to respond.”
Trump has said peace talks will produce an agreement to ensure Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon and brushed off violent eruptions as something like a Middle East folkway.
“In that part of the world, ceasefire is when you’re shooting in a more moderate manner,” Trump said Wednesday.
“It takes two to tango. We hit them very hard on something else and so they were responding,” he said.
Iran lies through their teeth. It’s what they do best. Peace is always the goal, and the only way there with this regime is leverage and ironclad verification. I want this one checked six ways to Sunday before anything gets signed. pic.twitter.com/5lSRShQn4e
— Congresswoman Kat Cammack (@RepKatCammack) June 4, 2026
Although Iran has routinely insisted that talks are making little to no progress, Trump continued to say on Wednesday that a breakthrough was possible, as noted by The Times of Israel.
“I hear the negotiation itself is going very well actually,” Trump said.
“It might not happen… It could happen over the weekend,” Trump said.
Trump said “we will get” Iran’s enriched uranium and that the material needed to make a nuclear weapon will be removed from Iran.
According to CNN, one sticking point in the talks has been that Iran wanted access to its frozen assets if it sets its nuclear program aside, and Trump — a critic of the 2015 deal orchestrated by former President Barack Obama — does not want the U.S. to hand it over.
In 2015, Iran was given access to $1.7 billion in previously frozen assets. This time around, Iran would like to haul in about $12 billion.
The end result of the diplomatic dance taking place would be that Iran might get paid by other nations, such as Qatar, to avoid money flowing directly from the U.S. to Iran.
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