Trump: US will ‘finish the job’ against Iran, I don’t care about rising prices

Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter

US President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One with Air Force Col. Christopher M. Robinson, commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, for a trip to China. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
US President Donald Trump walks to board Air Force One with Air Force Col. Christopher M. Robinson, commander of the 89th Airlift Wing, Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, for a trip to China. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

If Iran doesn’t accept US terms for a deal to end the war and address its nuclear program, the US will “finish the job,” says US President Donald Trump.

“They’ll either do the right thing, or we’ll finish the job,” he says before taking off for a high-stakes trip to China.

He rejects the idea that rising prices in the US pushed him to seek an end to the war.

“I don’t think about Americans’ financial situations,” he says. “I don’t think about anybody.”

“I think about one thing: we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

“The most important thing by far is Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Trump continues. “Every American understands it. If the stock market goes up or down a little bit, the American people understand it.”

Trump says that the US will “win it one way or the other. We’ll win it peacefully or otherwise.”

“No matter how you cut it, we win.”

Trump claims that Iran agreed that they will never have nuclear weapons “and then that’s not what they sent to me. We don’t play games.”

“We have Iran very much under control,” Trump insists. “We are either gonna make a deal or they will be decimated.”

After reports that Pakistan allowed Iran to stash fighter jets on its territory during the war, Trump says that the Pakistanis “have been great” mediators.

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