President Trump said on Wednesday that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Washington and Tehran was “not final” and warned the US could return to “dropping bombs” on Iran if the country “didn’t behave.”
“It’s a Memorandum of Understanding. If I don’t like it, if they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head, okay? Because they’ve misbehaved for 47 years,” the president told reporters on the sidelines of the G7 summit in France while meeting with Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, according to The Associated Press.
The president’s comments come after several media outlets published what is purported to be the MoU, though the US says the full text won’t be released until after a signing ceremony scheduled for Geneva, Switzerland, on Friday. After the signing, negotiations on the nuclear issue and sanctions relief for Iran will begin for a 60-day period, which can be extended if both countries agree.
Trump said the deal is a “great deal for a lot of reasons” and appeared to suggest that what has been published in the media is not the actual text by saying that “nobody knows what it is.” He also denied that it included a $300 billion investment fund for Iran’s reconstruction, even though that was included in the MoU text published by Al Arabiya, and Vice President JD Vance previously suggested such a fund could be available to Tehran.
“That’s false,” Trump said when asked about the fund. “People can invest if they want. I mean, what am I going to do — say nobody’s ever allowed to invest? We’re not investing. We’re not putting up ten cents. People can decide to do that, but that’s up to them… We do not have a fund.”
The president also acknowledged in his remarks that if the US continued the blockade on Iran and the Strait of Hormuz remained closed, it would cause a “worldwide depression.”
Iranian media reported on Wednesday that since the announcement of the MoU, 11 ships have been able to “break through the US blockade,” including eight that departed Iranian ports and three that arrived in Iran. The US military issued a notice to mariners on Monday, saying the blockade was still in place and advising ships not to cross the area “until explicit direction is given.”
