President Donald Trump said Monday night that he “couldn’t care less” whether Iran signs what he called a “worthless” agreement with the United States, declaring that Washington is better positioned with “almost total control” of the Strait of Hormuz as he called on the Iranian people to “rise up and fight.”
“I’m not trying to force Iran to the bargaining table, as ABC Fake News reported,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “I couldn’t care less if they sign a worthless, to them, agreement.”
Trump said he preferred the current U.S. position, pointing to what he described as “almost total control” of the Strait of Hormuz and an Iranian economy that is “totally collapsing.”
“They are just playing out the inevitable,” he wrote. “When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?”
The remarks came hours after U.S. forces completed a new wave of strikes against Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targets across Iran, following Tehran’s renewed threats to commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz and attacks against American forces in the region.
U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the operation struck IRGC air-defense sites, radar systems, maritime assets and facilities, mine-laying capabilities and communications sites. With the region remaining on heightened alert following Iranian missile and drone retaliation, CENTCOM said more than 50,000 U.S. service members across the Middle East remained “vigilant, lethal, and prepared to continue executing operations directed by the Commander in Chief.”
Trump had already cast doubt on the value of further negotiations earlier Monday, telling Fox News chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst during the U.S. operation that Tehran had squandered repeated opportunities to reach an agreement.
“I think an agreement with them isn’t worth the paper it’s written on,” Trump said. “We gave them a lot of chances.”
The increasingly dismissive posture toward negotiations comes as the administration intensifies a parallel economic campaign aimed at further isolating Tehran. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had said earlier Monday that the pressure was intended to create conditions that would bring Iran back to negotiations, declaring, “My job is to make sure that they want to have a deal, and they will want to have one.”
By Monday night, Bessent was also using stark language about the future of the Islamic Republic while discussing Operation Economic Outcast, the administration’s campaign to sever Tehran’s remaining economic ties abroad.
“The operation, we’ve just started it,” Bessent said during a Newsmax appearance, describing teams from the Treasury, State, and War departments spreading out around the world to target Iran’s economic connections. “We are telling the friends and foes that this is the end of the regime.”
Bessent said the administration would target countries, banks, and other entities facilitating Iran’s access to the global economy, declaring that Washington “will not stop.”
“This is the final move for this regime after 47 years,” he said.
Trump’s appeal for Iranians to “rise up and fight” echoed his calls earlier in the conflict for the Iranian people to challenge the country’s leadership, including urging them shortly after the war began to “take over your government.”
The remarks came as the administration pressed Tehran simultaneously on the military and economic fronts, with U.S. forces striking Iranian military capabilities around the Strait of Hormuz while Treasury moves to cut the Islamic Republic off from remaining sources of international financing and trade. Trump, meanwhile, has increasingly portrayed an agreement as something Tehran needs more than Washington — and Monday night made explicit that he prefers the leverage the United States currently holds to forcing Iran back to the negotiating table.
Joshua Klein is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein.
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