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U.S. President Donald Trump stated on Tuesday that he is prepared to reimpose sanctions on Russian oil shipments now that the Strait of Hormuz is reopening.
He pledged to release the full text of the U.S.-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) at a formal press conference where he would read it "word by word" and said he liked the idea of sending the agreement to Congress for review, delivering a cascade of significant disclosures from the sidelines of the G7 summit in France.
Speaking alongside UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Trump framed the entire Iran agreement around a single objective.
"Here's what it says: Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. That's what it says. It won't have one to buy, to develop, they will not have a nuclear weapon. I would say that's about 99.9% of what I wanted. The rest of it is irrelevant, frankly," Trump stated.
"Mine is a wall against a nuclear weapon. Obama's was a road to one," he added.
Trump said the U.S. was now in a position to let Russian oil sanctions waivers lapse following the Iran deal.
Washington had temporarily eased restrictions on Russian oil cargoes already at sea in March as crude prices spiked sharply following the outbreak of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.
The waiver had been extended as the conflict continued.
"Soon we will be able to do that because the oil is now flowing," Trump told reporters, later repeating the statement during his bilateral with Sheikh Mohammed.
The move was welcomed by European allies and Ukraine supporters who had criticized the waivers as going easy on Moscow even as the Ukraine war ground on.
The announcement effectively links the Iran deal's implementation to a return to fuller sanctions pressure on Russia, a sequencing that Trump did not spell out explicitly but that follows directly from his logic.
Trump confirmed the MoU text will be released "in a couple of days" once a formal setting is arranged, reversing an earlier suggestion that it might not be released before Friday's signing ceremony in Geneva.
He pledged to hold a press conference dedicated to the document.
"I'll not only release it; I'll probably have a press conference and read it to you word by word so that the press covers it accurately. Because it's a very important document," he said.
He described the current varied reporting on the deal's contents as a motivation for a public reading.
Trump also confirmed he will send the MoU to Congress for review, responding to calls from Republican senators who have insisted the agreement must have congressional backing to be durable. "I never thought about sending it, never even thought about it, but I will. I will send it to Congress. I like the idea," he said, adding, "I mean, who wouldn't approve it."
When asked about Senator Lindsey Graham's stated skepticism of the deal, Trump quipped, "Lindsey's skeptical? I'll have to talk to him; he'll be in big trouble."
He later added that Graham was "just fine."
On the fate of Iran's highly enriched uranium stockpile, believed to be buried under a mountain struck by B-2 bombers, Trump said the U.S. intended to destroy it rather than remove it but was in no rush.
"We're not looking to take it. We're looking to destroy it. We have plenty of it," he said.
"We have cameras from space on it. We know everybody who goes there, which is like nobody." He said the B-2 strikes had caused "the entire mountain" to collapse inward, making excavation uniquely difficult.
"It's a very tough excavation. Nobody else can do it but us and probably China. They have the equipment. We have the equipment. We're in no rush, but we get it, and when we get it, we'll destroy it," Trump added.
Trump also said he expected the second phase of negotiations with Iran to move quickly.
"Iran wants to get it done. They have to get back to business, and the relationship is now normalized," he said.
On the Strait of Hormuz, he repeated his assertion that it would be "fully open by Friday" and would be "toll-free beyond the 60 days."
He said he was pleased with where things stood. "Good things are happening. The ships are starting to move now."
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