Trump Says Iran Deal Aimed to Avoid Global Economic Shock

At the G7 summit in France on Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump said the emerging agreement with Iran was driven mainly by a desire to prevent a global “economic catastrophe” and keep markets stable. He said continued military strikes would not solve the strategic problem on the ground and would have hurt the world economy.

Trump argued that if Washington had not pursued the deal, the U.S. could have kept bombing Iran for “two more weeks, three years, two years,” but the Strait of Hormuz still would not have opened, markets would not have risen, and “there would be no success.” He added, “If we had continued bombing, the strait would never have opened.”

He linked diplomacy directly to Wall Street, saying, “The stock market is the smartest of all, every time we say we are going to make a deal, it goes up.” Trump said he did not want an economic crisis and believed Iranian leaders would “start behaving differently.” He also suggested the situation amounted to “regime change,” and warned that if the memorandum of understanding is not carried out within 60 days, “we will go back to bombing.”

Trump also spoke about Israel, saying, “Israel was good for me, it was a joint venture. We learned this over months.” He said he had a “very small argument” with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over Israeli military strikes in Beirut, quoting himself as telling Netanyahu, “Bibi, you do not have to bring down a building every time Hezbollah does something.” He said he had sent Israel a copy of the Iran memorandum, and added that he felt “very bad” about the situation in Lebanon, while also saying Israel could do “a better job” there and was “not doing a good job.”