“There’s a chance that if they don’t make a deal, that I will do secondary tariffs on them like I did four years ago,” he added. Trump’s language represented a sharpening of his comment a few days earlier that if Tehran refused to negotiate a new nuclear agreement, “bad, bad things are going to happen to Iran.”
It was not clear whether Trump was threatening bombing by US planes alone or perhaps in an operation coordinated with Israel. Iran sent a response through Oman to a letter from Trump urging Tehran to reach a new nuclear deal, saying its policy was not to engage in direct negotiations with the United States while under its maximum pressure campaign and military threats, Tehran’s foreign minister was quoted as saying on Thursday. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian reiterated the policy on Sunday. “Direct negotiations [with the US] have been rejected, but Iran has always been involved in indirect negotiations, and now too, the Supreme Leader has emphasized that indirect negotiations can still continue,” he said, referring to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. (Read More)