President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran would not make the deal he thinks is needed to end a war with the U.S. and should surrender as talks between the countries remained stalled.
A U.S. sailor launches an F-35C Lightning II, assigned to Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 314, from the flight deck of Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln during the ongoing conflict with Iran August 5, 2026. U.S. Navy
President Donald Trump said on Monday that Iran would not make the deal he thinks is needed to end a war with the U.S. and should surrender as talks between the countries remained stalled.
"They're not going to make the kind of a deal that I feel is necessary. Look, we're in there for one reason: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," he told reporters in the Oval Office.
Asked whether the U.S. was seeking to extend an interim deal with Iran, Trump said "no."
The interim deal agreed to in June declared an "immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts", but quickly unraveled, with Trump saying it was "over" on July 7 and Iran's foreign ministry declaring it "suspended" a week later.
Under that memorandum of understanding, Iran and the U.S. committed to negotiating a final deal — covering broader issues such as the fate of Iran's nuclear programme — in a maximum of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent. Monday marks 60 days since the MOU was signed.
Hours before, Trump told a Fox News reporter during a phone interview that Iran "should put up the white flag of surrender."
Separately, Oman and Iran have been in talks to try to reach an agreement to restore commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, which carried 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas supplies before the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran began in late February.
"If Oman gets in the way, we'll bomb the shit out of them," Trump told Fox.
When asked later in the Oval Office if he was out of patience with Oman, Trump told reporters: "No, I don't think they behaved very well, but we'd handle them very easily, just like we do other things."
The dispute over control of the Strait of Hormuz has driven up fuel prices and put pressure on Trump to end a war that is unpopular at home ahead of the November midterm elections that will decide control of the U.S. Congress.
Trump told Fox News that the midterms were not impacting his strategy on Iran.
"Midterms have nothing to do with my thinking," he said.
Earlier on Monday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform: "The number one Goal is, and always will be, that Iran cannot have, in any way, shape, or form, a Nuclear Weapon," repeating one of his stated rationales for the war.
By Trevor Hunnicutt and Katharine Jackson
Donald Trump threatened Monday to bomb Oman if it gets "in our way" over a deal on the Strait of Hormu, as Muscat and Tehran negotiate the maritime chokepoint's future without Washington at the table.
Even as Iran projects resilience in the war with the United States, its leaders are worried that a threat of more economic punishment by Donald Trump could increase hardships, reignite unrest and further erode the Islamic Republic’s legitimacy.
Iran's parliament approved on Sunday the general principles of a bill that would criminalise interviews and other communications with media deemed hostile to the Islamic Republic, including U.S. or Israeli media and outlets financed by either country, Iran's Shargh newspaper reported.
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