President Donald Trump wrote a letter this week to Iranian leader Ali Khamenei urging the Islamic Republic to enter negotiations and strike a deal preventing the development of nuclear weapons.
“I've written them a letter saying I hope you negotiate, because if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing for them,” Trump told Fox Business's Maria Bartiromo in an interview that aired Friday.
Trump said that while he was not ruling out a military intervention, he would “rather negotiate a deal.”
“I'm not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily,” Trump said.
Trump's use of a letter mirrors the strategy of former President Barack Obama, whose correspondence with Khamenei helped jumpstart negotiations ultimately yielding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, a 2015 deal that traded sanctions relief for some limits on Iran's nuclear program. Trump also traded letters with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his first term as part of a bid to convince Pyongyang to abandon its nuclear program.
The International Atomic Energy Agency earlier this week called on the US and Iran to begin talks over the Islamic Republic's nuclear activities. Agency monitors warned last week that the Persian Gulf's inventory of uranium enriched just below weapons grade swelled more than half since Trump won November's presidential election.
While Trump said last month he's open to a new Iran agreement, he's also pledged to reinvigorate sanctions aimed at strangling the country's oil exports. Tehran's government has rejected talks as long as the US maintains its maximum-pressure campaign against the Iranian economy.
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US would ramp up sanctions on the country, adding that the US will “shutdown” the country's oil sector using “pre-determined benchmarks and timelines.”
“Making Iran broke again will mark the beginning of our updated sanctions policy,” he told the Economic Club of New York.
Trump has also discussed Moscow assisting in outreach to Tehran during a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to people familiar with the call.
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