US President Donald Trump said that he is not going to be “much more patient” with Iran’s leadership and that they can either make a deal or “get annihilated” during an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Thursday.
“I am not going to be much more patient,” Trump asserted. “Now they can make a deal, or they get annihilated,” he said, adding that “any sane person would make a deal, but they might be crazy.”
He reiterated that the US will not allow Iran to develop or obtain a nuclear weapon because “they would use it.”
As for the enriched uranium Iran already has, Trump said that he would prefer to “get it” rather than leave it “entombed” in rubble after US and Israeli strikes destroyed much of Iran’s nuclear weaponization infrastructure in June of 2025 and during Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring Lion.
“I just feel better if I got it, actually. But it’s, I think, it’s more for public relations than it is for anything else.”
He then stated that the US knows that Iran has been building up in the past few weeks since the ceasefire took effect.
“I hope they’re watching. Because all of their anti-stuff, anything they put up, we know exactly what they put up,” he said. “We know everything they’ve done. They built it up a little bit. We’ll take it out in one day. It’ll all be gone. You know, they had a little respite. And so they’re trying to get a few things together.
“It’ll all be gone in one day. Everything they’ve done for the last four weeks will be gone in one day.”
After talks between Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday, the White House said the leaders had agreed that the strait should be open and that Xi made clear China’s opposition to the militarisation of the strait and any effort to charge a toll for its use.
The two leaders met at the walled-off Zhongnanhai complex in Beijing as Trump wraps up his state visit to China.
“We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to solve,” Trump said.
Trump said Xi also promised not to send Iran military equipment. “He said he’s not going to give military equipment, that’s a big statement,” Trump said on Fox.
Xi also expressed interest in purchasing more American oil to reduce China’s future dependence on the strait, and the leaders agreed that Iran should never obtain nuclear weapons, the White House readout said. Tehran has denied seeking such weapons.
