DONALD TRUMP HAS warned Iran that he will resume bombing the country if Tehran does not abide by its obligations, two days ahead of the signing of an agreement to end the war the US and Israel began over three months ago.
The US president is set to hold a press conference at the G7 in France at 2.30pm.
Speaking at the summit earlier, the US president said the deal that is expected to be signed by both countries in Switzerland on Friday is “not final”.
“It’s a memorandum of understanding, and if I don’t like it, we’ll go back to shooting at them,” he said during a press conference alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
“If they don’t behave, we’ll go right back to dropping bombs right smack in the middle of their head.”
Trump said Iran had “misbehaved for 47 years,” referring to the Islamic republic, which was founded in the Islamic revolution after the ousting of the shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, a US ally, in 1979.
The talks on a final US-Iran settlement to end the conflict are set to begin on Friday immediately after the signing of the accord in Switzerland and continue over a 60-day window to flesh out its details, which remain largely under wraps.
Both sides have said the bombing will stop and the Strait of Hormuz will reopen, but not much beyond that.
Speaking during the same press conference, Trump slammed the agreement that former US president Barack Obama reached with Iran in 2015 – which Trump tore up during his first term in office.
He told reporters that the Democrat handed Iran “billions and billions of dollars” and referred to money being flown to Iran on a Boeing 747, adding that Obama “tried to bribe his way out of it”.
“You know what the Iranians did? They laughed at Obama and they said ‘he’s a stupid son of a bitch’,” he said.
Obama’s agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – also known as JCPOA, or the Iran Nuclear Deal – was signed by Iran, the European Union and the five permanent UN Security Council members China, Russia, France, the UK and the US.
As part of the deal, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear ambitions and allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its sites in exchange for sanctions relief.
The money given to Iran on the plane, some $400 million which was largely in Swiss francs, was Iranian assets that had been frozen decades earlier. But the payment coincided with the release of four Americans imprisoned in Tehran, which raised questions and led to criticism in the US.
It remains to be seen how Trump’s deal will differ from the 2015 agreement.
With reporting from © AFP 2026