“I’ll let you know about it later,” he said before boarding Air Force One, adding that “they’re going to give me the exact wording now”.
However, moments later, he elaborated on Truth Social, claiming “[I] can’t imagine that it would be acceptable.”
“They have not yet paid a big enough price for what they have done to Humanity, and the World, over the last 47 years,” Trump said in the post.
Trump rejected a previous Iranian proposal this week. However, conversations have continued, and the three-week ceasefire appears to be holding.
The president has also floated a new plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, where about a fifth of the world’s trade in oil and natural gas typically passes.
The president also pushed back on remarks he made yesterday, when he said, “Frankly, maybe we’re better off not making a deal at all. Do you want to know the truth? Because we can’t let this thing go on.”
“I didn’t say that,” Trump said today.
“I said that if we left right now, it would take them 20 years to rebuild. But we’re not leaving right now,” he told reporters before departing from Palm Beach to Miami.
“We’re going to cut way down. And we’re cutting a lot further than 5000,” he said, refusing to elaborate on why the call had been made.
The proposal has been met with bipartisan condemnation, with some Republicans joining Democrats in voicing their disapproval.
Senator Roger Wicker of Mississippi and Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama said the decision risked “undermining deterrence and sending the wrong signal to Vladimir Putin.”
Wicker and Rogers said any significant change to the US force posture in Europe warrants review and coordination with Congress.
“We expect the Department to engage with its oversight committees in the days and weeks ahead on this decision and its implications for US deterrence and trans-Atlantic security,” they said in a joint statement.
However, Germany seemed to take the move somewhat in their stride, with Boris Pistorius, defence minister, saying it was “expected.”
Congress bypassed as billions in arms sales approved
In several announcements made yesterday, the State Department said it had approved military sales to Israel, Qatar, the UAE and Kuwait totalling US$8.6 billion ($12 billion).
“The Secretary of State [Marco Rubio] has determined and provided detailed justification that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale… of the above defence articles and defence services is in the national security interests of the United States,” the statements read, adding that this meant the need for congressional approval was waived.
Israel received the Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System and “other related equipment”, which will net the US about $1.4 billion.
The UAE and Qatar also received this system, while the latter will have its Patriot air and missile defence stocks replenished.
This will cost around $5.6 billion alone.
“There will be no adverse impact on US defence readiness as a result of this proposed sale,” the State Department claims.
