Iran’s supreme leader has rebuffed US President Donald Trump’s threat to use force

The West is seeking to use negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program to assert its dominance, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Saturday. His statement came after President Donald Trump suggested that the US may have to use force against the Islamic Republic.

“Some coercive governments insist on negotiations. Such negotiations aren’t aimed at solving issues. Their aim is to exert their dominance and impose what they want,” Khamenei wrote on his English-language account on X.

“Three European countries issue statements claiming that Iran hasn’t fulfilled its nuclear commitments under the JCPOA! Someone from this side should ask them, have you fulfilled yours?!” he added. 

During his first term in office, Trump pulled the US from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and reimposed sanctions on Iran. Tehran responded by scaling down its own compliance with the deal. 

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In an interview with Fox Business that aired on Friday, Trump said, “there are two ways Iran can be handled: militarily, or you make a deal.” He said earlier that he sent a letter to Khamenei offering to reopen negotiations. 

“I’ve written them a letter saying, ‘I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing,’” Trump told Fox.

International Atomic Energy Agency head Rafael Mariano Grossi reported earlier this week that Iran has again increased its stockpile of enriched uranium. On Wednesday, the UK, France, and Germany released a joint statement calling on Tehran to “halt and reverse its nuclear escalation” and return to full compliance with the JCPOA. 

Tehran has insisted that the US and its allies in Europe must first remedy the sanctions imposed under Trump. “Any allegation regarding Iran’s implementation of its JCPOA commitments is fundamentally flawed when divorced from the full context of the US withdrawal,” Iran’s envoy to the UN, Amir-Saeid Iravani, said in December 2024. He stressed that Iran would return to full compliance if the sanctions are lifted.