ÉVIAN-LES-BAINS, France—President Donald Trump said in response to a question from Breitbart News at the G7 that future economic opportunities for Iran would “be good” if there is continued cooperation moving forward.
Trump’s comments came during a bilateral meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, on the sidelines of the G7 in France.
“This is for both you and the Emir: What are the economic opportunities for Iran if there’s… continued cooperation with the United States moving forward?” Breitbart News asked.
“I think they’d be good,” Trump responded. “I mean, I can tell you from our standpoint we have a lot of opportunities all over the world, but the Emir lives right next door, and I think you know they have a lot of oil. I think they’ll be good. First, they’re going to have to prove themselves, I think, before any of us go in there, but I hope they do well. I hope they do well.”
“Look, one thing, whether they do well or poorly, they can’t have a nuclear weapon; that’s a big thing,” the president continued. “If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have blown up Israel, they would have blown up the Middle East, and they probably would have taken a shot at us. We would have gotten them first, I think, but they would have done tremendous damage. Had we not canceled the Obama nuclear deal, the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] JCPOA, you would have had them having a nuclear weapon five years ago.”
Trump then hammered the JCPOA, also known as the Iran Nuclear Deal, as “a road to a nuclear weapon.” He also contrasted his deal with Iran, and military action in Iran dating back to Operation Midnight Hammer last Summer, with the JCPOA, emphasizing that his deal does not pay Iran.
“It was the dumbest deal I’ve ever seen, other than NAFTA. NAFTA maybe was even dumber, but just in terms of a bad deal for us, paid them billions and billions of dollars,” he said. “We pay nothing. They paid ’em billions of dollars, and [the JCPOA] was a disaster. I terminated that in my first term…My second term, we sent in the B-2 bombers, and we terminated their—I call it the nuclear dust, their enriched material… and totally effectively.”
“And I remember when CNN, which is fake news… said, ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t that effective.’ So the Atomic Energy just reported that it was one of the most devastating bombings that they’ve ever—the whole mountain collapsed on top of it, and frankly… we’re going to go get it, but to go get it is a big deal because they say only China and us have the equipment where you can even get—the whole mountain has collapsed on top,” he added. “We have cameras on it, you could make the case, ‘Why even bother?’ because it’s not really valuable… It’s not very valuable stuff, but I think psychologically, we want to get it.”
Al Thani also spoke positively of Iran’s economic future, but emphasized that the focus in recent months had not been on economic opportunity but on securing a peace deal.
“I think the last couple of months or weeks, I think that wasn’t our—we were not interested in, you know, what are the opportunities, economical opportunities in Iran,” he said. “Our interest, both of us, was to first of all to find a deal to stop this war. This is our main target, but looking at the economy and opportunity, I’m sure there are going to be huge opportunities.”
“And you know… as I said, this is a very important momentum to keep working like that to reach… a final deal,” he added. “After that, Iran will be… of course, open for any kind of investments, and I’m sure there are going to be huge opportunities, but to be honest… our target… is to try to find a deal.”