A day after he announced the US withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal, President Donald Trump today warned Tehran of severe consequences if it restarted its nuclear weapons programme.
If they do, there will be very severe consequences, Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
He was responding to a question on what the US will do if Iran starts up its nuclear programme again. Iran will find out. They're going to find out. I don't think they should do that. I would advise Iran not to start their nuclear programme. I would advise them very strongly, he answered.
Describing the Iranian nuclear deal as one sided, Trump said it ultimately was going to lead to nuclear proliferation all over the Middle East.
They were talking about it, other countries were talking about it. It was going to lead to that. They are all very happy at what I did. That was a one-sided deal that we spent USD 150 billion and USD 1.8 billion in cash on getting done. It was not good, and it was not appropriate, he said.
We will see how we do with Iran. Probably, we won't do very well with them, but that's okay too. They've got to understand life, because I don't think they do understand life. If you look at what's happening in the Middle East with Syria, with Yemen, with all of the places they're involved, it's bedlam and death. And we can't allow that to happen, he said.
As such, Trump said the US has terminated a terrible, terrible deal that should have never, ever been made.
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We will be putting on among the strongest sanctions that we've ever put on a country. They are going into effect very shortly. They're mostly constituted and drawn already, and we'll just have to see what happens, Trump said.
We can't allow a deal to hurt the world. That's a deal to hurt the world, that's not a deal for the United States. That's a deal to hurt the world and, certainly, Israel, said the president.