Trump vows more US strikes on Iran after accusing negotiators of 'playing us for suckers'

LAST UPDATE | 3 hrs ago

DONALD TRUMP HAS said the United States will renew attacks on Iran, accusing Tehran’s peace negotiators of “playing us for suckers.”

Trump’s remarks came after the two sides traded fire following the downing of a US helicopter, further straining a ceasefire that took effect in April.

“We hit them hard yesterday. We’re going to hit them again hard today,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.

“We’re going to be attacking them – attacking them very hard.”

The United States said it had carried out strikes on Iran on Tuesday in retaliation for the shooting down of the Apache chopper. Its two crew members were rescued.

Trump said he could order the targeting of Iranian bridges and power plants, a step he had originally threatened just before the ceasefire but never followed through on.

“I am not going to say that to you. But I can do that,” Trump said when asked by an AFP journalist about a Fox News report that he was considering such plans.

Trump appeared to be losing patience with the peace talks with Iran, after weeks of repeatedly saying the two sides were close to a deal.

“We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along, they keep playing us for suckers,” Trump said.

“All they have to do is they have to start signing a paper. It’s fully negotiated. We have it fully negotiated, but they’re tapping and tapping, and I say, ‘All right, let’s give them a couple of more days.’”

Trump had earlier warned in a social media post that Iran has taken too long to negotiate a deal over the conflict in the Middle East and will now “have to pay the price.”

“The Bully of the Middle East is DEAD!!! They’ve taken too long to negotiate a deal that would have been great for them, now they will have to pay the price!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

It marked a major contrast with his comments to reporters on Tuesday that negotiations on an enduring settlement to end the war were in their “final throes,” and could be wrapped up in “two or three days.”

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In another social post today, Trump praised the US blockade of Iranian shipping calling it “the most successful” in history while labelling it a “steel wall.”

He claimed that the blockade had halted Iranian business and prevented it from paying military wages, while still allowing other countries to export “lots of oil.”

“Praise be to Allah!” Trump wrote.

Iran attacks

Earlier today, Iran attacked American bases in Jordan and Bahrain, warning its Gulf neighbours that they had a “responsibility” to stop the United States and Israel from using their territory to hit them.

Iranian forces fired “long-range missiles” and “targeted and destroyed four major targets” in Jordan, including F35 fighter nests at an air base and the US command centre in Al-Azraq, the country’s Revolutionary Guards said in a statement quoted by state-run IRNA news agency on Wednesday.

Jordan’s military said it shot down five missiles from Iran, with no casualties or material damage, while Bahrain said it intercepted and destroyed “a number of Iranian aerial attacks”.

Elsewhere, the Kuwaiti military said its air defences were engaging “hostile aerial targets”.

The incidents came after the US military said it had “completed” what Trump portrayed as a retaliatory assault on Iran over the downing of an Apache attack helicopter.

US Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said on X that it had “struck Iranian air defense, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites near the Strait of Hormuz with precision munitions from US Air Force and Navy fighter jets”.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had earlier threatened payback, saying on X: “The US (has) opted to test our determination. Our Powerful Armed Forces will leave no attack or threat unanswered.”

Iran has insisted any deal to end the war must include a truce in Lebanon, which was drawn into the conflict when Iran-backed Hezbollah militants within its borders fired rockets at Israel on 2 March.

Israel responded with an extensive campaign of airstrikes and a ground invasion that has killed more than 3,600 people. Exchanges of fire with Hezbollah have not stopped despite a nominal truce.

Lebanese officials said 11 people were killed in airstrikes on the southern city of Tyre on Tuesday.

With reporting by AFP

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