Trump defends deal with Iran, says continuing bombing would have been ‘economic catastrophe’

US President Donald Trump defends the MOU he reached with Iran on Sunday, arguing that resuming bombing against Iran would have caused “economic catastrophe.”

“If we didn’t do this deal, we could have dropped more bombs for another three weeks, two to four weeks, [but] you would never have the Hormuz Strait open. You would never have success, your market would have, instead of going up at levels that nobody’s ever seen before, would go down at levels that nobody ever saw before,” Trump says during a press conference from a G7 conference in France.

Trump knocks hawkish critics who oppose the deal, calling them, “the tough guys that would drive the country right down the tubes.”

Trump claims that the last two days alone of US bombing in Iran cost $200 million.

While Trump now suggests that additional bombing would have caused major harm to the global economy, he said hours earlier that he will go back to bombing if Iran does not comply with the deal.

Trump opens up the presser by declaring that the Iran deal “achieves everything we set out to accomplish — ending the current conflict, reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.

“I think [Iran’s leaders are] going to behave much differently. They see a different way of life that they were never exposed to,” he claims.