President Trump while on his way back from the G7 summit in Canada, which he cut short due to the Middle East situation, said to reporters aboard Air Force One Tuesday morning that he wants "a real end" to Iran's nuclear problem. He expressed his assumption that Iran is "very close" to having nuclear weapons.
He asserted this means nothing less than Tehran "giving up entirely" its enrichment activities. "I didn't say I was looking for a ceasefire," he said. This was in follow-up to a scathing message he wrote on Truth Social, saying that French President Emmanuel Macron had "mistakenly said that I left the G7 Summit, in Canada, to go back to D.C. to work on a 'cease fire' between Israel and Iran. Wrong! He has no idea why I am now on my way to Washington, but it certainly has nothing to do with a Cease Fire. Much bigger than that."
Late yesterday Trump had issued an unprecedented written message telling some ten million Iranian inhabitants to "immediately evacuate" Tehran amid ongoing Israeli strikes, suggesting that a much bigger assault is coming - a warning made much more ominous by the open secret that Iran possesses nukes.
"You're going to find out over the next two days. You're going to find out. Nobody's slowed up so far," Trump said further, hours after the evacuation warning - which came just before 3am local time.
But he also caveated that "I may" send US Middle East Envoy Steve Witkoff or Vice President JD Vance to meet with Iranian officials to seek de-escalation and negotiations. "It depends what happens when I get back," he added.
What made the whole exchange even more interesting is that all of this was partially in response to a question regarding director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s March testimony that Iran was not building a nuclear weapon. Here's the exchange:
CNN: You’ve always said you don’t believe Iran should have a nuke. Tulsi Gabbard testified in March that Iran wasn’t building a nuclear weapon.
Trump: I don’t care what she said. They were very close to getting a nuke.
It's also the case that the CIA's latest assessment maintains that the Islamic Republic is likely not seeking a nuclear weapon. Crucially this was part of the DNI's annual threat assessment.
Gabbard had previously firmly stated before the Senate Intelligence Committee that the US intelligence community "continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003."
And yet currently, a second US aircraft carrier, the USS Nimitz, is en route to Mideast waters, and US Air Force fuel tankers are being positioned in Europe - all for the Pentagon to ready more 'options' for President Trump should military action be initiated (Congress might want a word...).
While the tempo of the exchange of strikes have slowed, the exchange of missile fire has persisted...
Gabbard has in hours following Trump's comments insisted she and Trump are "on the same page" over Iran’s nuclear weapon timeline. "President Trump was saying the same thing that I said in my annual threat assessment back in March in Congress. Unfortunately, too many people in the media don’t care to actually read what I said," Gabbard told reporters as she arrived on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
Meanwhile, at the G7 which Trump left, a joint statement stress that "Iran can never have a nuclear weapons" while also urging de-escalation of the conflict. It added that Israel has a "right to defend itself" - however, made no mention of the Iranians being able to defend themselves (of course, this new war began with an Israeli aerial attack on the country).
A note on the latest from Deutsche Bank:
Yesterday became steadily more risk-on with extra momentum from a WSJ report, just under 90 minutes after the US open, which said that Iran was signalling it wanted to end hostilities and restart nuclear talks. So that led to a significant easing of the broad market stress, with the S&P 500 (+0.94%) recovering the vast majority of Friday’s -1.13% decline. Similarly, gold fell -1.37%, reversing the spike that saw it post a new record high on Friday. And in line with that theme, some of the assets most affected by the conflict did very well, with the Israeli shekel seeing its biggest daily gain against the US Dollar (+3.49%) since 1998, with Israel’s TA-35 index (+1.82%) closing at an all-time high.
However, just as markets were getting more comfortable, we've seen a bit of a reversal overnight after Trump left the G7 meeting a day early with reports that he has requested the National Security Council to convene on his return to Washington. He posted that “Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!” There was no extra context. In fact, as DB‘s Michael Hsueh has pointed out, the G7 leaders' statement was only 121 words, compared with June 2024's statement of 19,834 words, and Dec 2023's statement of 5,108 words. It also only discussed the Israel/Iran conflict whereas normally a whole host of topics are covered.
So we're all in a bit of a limbo in terms of whether anything substantive came out of the summit and whether Trump was alluding to new information with his post and his early G7 meeting departure. Before his post, that WSJ headline was backed up elsewhere. For instance, Reuters reported shortly afterwards that Iran had asked Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman to ask President Trump to get Israel to agree to a ceasefire, in return for more flexibility from Iran in the nuclear talks. And Trump himself later said at the G7 summit that Iran would “like to talk, but they should have done that before”.
There are still big questions as to whether Israel would be receptive to a ceasefire, given that it is seeking to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Moreover, the public rhetoric hasn’t leant that way either, and Iran’s Mehr News Agency cited a senior security official saying that it is prepared to deliver a “major blow” to Israel after its strikes. So there is maybe diplomatic movement behind the scenes but not yet in the open.
Below are more developing events & the latest via Newsquawk
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