Trump: No deal needed to end the war, Iran won’t be able to obtain a nuke ‘for years’

WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said Iran does not have to agree to a deal to end the ongoing US-Israeli war with the Islamic Republic, and stated that the United States will probably wrap up the war in two or three weeks.

The White House later announced that Trump would “address the nation” on Wednesday night at 9 p.m. Eastern time to provide an update on the war.

Trump also declared that Iran’s surviving stockpiles of enriched uranium did not concern him at all since they are buried underground and inaccessible, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu boasted that Israel, during the current conflict, has “smashed” Tehran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons.

The remarks from both Trump and Netanyahu appeared to potentially set the stage for the conclusion of the war, even as the US has been amassing troops for a potential ground operation in Iran.

“No, [the Iranians] don’t have to make a deal,” Trump said in response to reporters’ questions at the White House, which later announced the president will “address the nation” about the war on Wednesday at 9 p.m. eastern time.

“When we feel that they are… put into the stone ages and won’t be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we’ll leave, whether we have a deal or not,” he said. “It’s irrelevant now.”

Trump has claimed that the US already obliterated Iran’s nuclear program in strikes last year and said earlier Tuesday that he was not focused on Iranian uranium stockpiles, so it’s not clear what else Trump is looking to accomplish militarily. It also remains unclear if Iran will follow suit if the US unilaterally ceases fire.

“It’s possible that we’ll have a deal because they want to make a deal more than I want to make a deal,” Trump added.

“But in a fairly short period of time, we’ll be finished, and they will not be able to do a nuclear weapon for years,” he continued.

“Maybe in a long time from now, [they’ll be] able to do a nuclear weapon, you’ll have a president [who] will be like me, and he will go there and knock the hell out of them again,” Trump said, acknowledging that the ongoing war with Iran may not be definitive.

Just three weeks ago, Trump made the reverse claim, saying that he wanted to “make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it.”

US to be ‘leaving’ Iran ‘very soon’

While speaking with the media Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump was adamant that the US will be “leaving” Iran “very soon,” insisting that gasoline prices will subsequently “tumble down” as well.

After a reporter noted that Americans are feeling the financial squeeze at the gas pump, Trump declared they’re also “feeling a lot safer” because Iran doesn’t have a nuclear weapon.

Trump claimed the “detour” from improving the US economy was necessary to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb, something he said he already prevented in last year’s strikes against Tehran’s nuclear sites.

As for the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said other countries that want to get their oil through the key waterway will have to “fend for themselves,” acknowledging that Iran could drop mines or direct machine gun and RPG fire at ships.

“I think it’ll be very safe, but we have nothing to do with that,” Trump said of the strait, which Iran has shuttered in response to the US and Israeli attacks.

Trump stated the US has done its part by taking out dozens of Iran’s “radicalized lunatic” leaders.

He also reiterated his claim that the US has enacted “regime change” in Iran, even though the Islamic Republic is still standing. Still, he asserted that the new leadership is “much more rational.”

Trump then said regime change was not even his goal to begin with, even though he urged Iranians to take over the government once the bombing stops in the speech he gave upon launching the war.

He claimed that he only had one war aim: Ensuring Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

His aides have listed at least four other goals, though those too have ranged from the destruction of Iran’s missile program, the destruction of its navy, the destruction of its air force and the cessation of its support for proxies

Pressed for a more specific timeline for when the war might end, Trump responded, “I think week two or three weeks.”

“Within maybe two weeks — maybe a couple of days longer,” Trump added later on.

Trump has a history of providing two-week timelines in a variety of policy fields that he hasn’t typically stuck with.

“We want to knock out every single thing they have now, [But] it’s possible that we’ll make a deal before that,” Trump said, adding that he’d like to hit some additional bridges in Iran, predicting that it will take 15 to 20 years to rebuild what has been hit in the war.

Speaking separately on Tuesday at a Pentagon briefing, US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine said American forces have carried out more than 11,000 strikes against Iranian targets, while revealing they have also successfully begun conducting “overland missions” of B-52 bomber sorties, thanks to the air superiority the United States has over Iran.

Also Tuesday, the White House said the US military was prepared to thwart any attacks by Iran, responding to threats by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps against US tech giants, such as Apple and Google, in the region.

“The United States military is and was prepared to curtail any attacks by Iran, as evidenced by the 90 percent drop in ballistic missile and drone attacks by the terrorist regime,” said a White House official, who did not wish to be named.

Iran’s uranium ‘deeply buried’ underground

In an earlier phone interview with CBS, Trump said he doesn’t “even think about” Iran’s stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, whose recovery some experts say is critical to ensuring that Tehran can’t rush to a nuclear weapon.

“I don’t even think about it. I just know that it’s so deeply buried it’s going to be very hard for anybody” to reach it, Trump said, referencing the US strikes last June on Iran’s nuclear facilities where the stockpiles are believed to be held.

“We’ve watched it. And at least I think finally people admit it was obliteration. It’s down there deep… Even without a war, they haven’t been able to do it. So… it’s pretty safe. But, we’ll make a determination,” he added.

Asked when the war could wind down completely, Trump was again non-committal. “It won’t be long,” he said.

“I would say we are two weeks ahead of schedule,” Trump claimed, even though the White House previously said the war would last four to six weeks, and the war is now in its fifth week.

Trump added that it would take Iran “10 years to rebuild” after the war.

Later, in an NBC interview, Trump reiterated, “We’re doing great” in the war. “And it’s coming to an end.”

Meanwhile, in a video statement, Netanyahu lauded the IDF’s accomplishments in the war against Iran last June and in the current campaign, including “hitting hard and distancing two existential threats.” Tehran, he specified, was “moving ahead to develop nuclear weapons and tens of thousands of ballistic missiles.”

“In Operation Rising Lion, we removed from upon us the immediate threat of Iran arming itself with a nuclear weapon and many ballistic missiles,” he said, referring to the June war. And in the current war, he added, “we brought a complementary achievement, by smashing the industrial capability of the regime to produce these tools of destruction.”

Netanyahu said Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader who was killed on the war’s first day, had wanted to bury those programs deep underground to make them immune from Israeli attacks.

The premier promised that “sooner or later,” the Iranian regime will fall — seemingly contradicting Trump’s assertion that the killing so far of a series of top Islamic Republic officials has already constituted “regime change.”

Netanyahu said that Iran’s “trillion dollar” investment in ballistic missiles, in nuclear enrichment and in supporting armed proxies “has gone down the drain.”

He summed up 10 major achievements he said were accomplished in the war, including the creation of “security zones” in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon that are patrolled by the IDF.

He claimed that Israel has hit Iran and its axis with “10 plagues,” a reference to the holiday of Passover, which begins Wednesday evening.

Netanyahu listed the blows Israel has delivered to terror groups Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and others in the West Bank, as well as to the ousted Assad regime in Syria. He also listed five “plagues” delivered to Iran — hitting its nuclear program, ballistic missiles, regime infrastructure, internal security forces, and senior leaders.

Pakistan, China unveil truce plan; US reportedly doesn’t oppose it

Also Tuesday, Pakistan and China issued a joint call for an immediate ceasefire followed by peace talks between the US and Iran.

PR No.85/2026

Five-Point Initiative of China and Pakistan for Restoring Peace and Stability in the Gulf and Middle East Region (Beijing, March 31,2026) pic.twitter.com/JAkSsro17a

— Ministry of Foreign Affairs – Pakistan (@ForeignOfficePk) March 31, 2026

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, in Beijing, after which they issued their five-point initiative.

The plan also calls for the opening of the Strait of Hormuz and for a UN-backed peace agreement.

In a call with Israel’s Channel 12, Trump didn’t deny knowledge of the plan, saying only that talks about ending the war were progressing.

An official with knowledge of the details was cited by the outlet as saying that the White House does not oppose the Chinese-Pakistani initiative.