President Donald Trump says Iran negotiating ‘seriously’ with US government
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President Donald Trump said on Saturday that he believed Iran was engaged in “serious” negotiations with the United States and expressed hope that an “acceptable” deal could be reached.
The president’s comments were made as he was reportedly weighing options for a possible military strike on Iran amid widespread protests and a violent crackdown there.
Asked by a reporter aboard Air Force One if he had decided to attack Iran, Trump replied, “I certainly can’t tell you that.”
“But we have very large, powerful ships heading in that direction,” he added. “I hope they negotiate something acceptable.”
Senior Diplomat warns Iran will retaliate with ‘everything we have’ if US attacks
President Donald Trump walks to Marine One to depart from the South Lawn of the White House on Friday, Jan. 16, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
The president then sidestepped a question about whether Tehran would be encouraged if the United States did not attack Iran, saying: “Some people think so. Some people don’t think so.”
“You can have a negotiated agreement that will be satisfactory without nuclear weapons,” Trump said. “They need to do it, but I don’t know if they will. But they’re talking to us. They’re seriously talking to us.”
Trump said the United States would not share military plans with its Gulf allies when negotiating with Iran, even as U.S. naval forces flocked to the region.
TRUMP SAID IRAN WAS CALLED MANY TIMES TO MAKE A DEAL WHILE THE CARRIER ENTERED MIDDLE EAST WATERS
President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media aboard Air Force One en route from Washington, D.C., to West Palm Beach, Florida, on January 31, 2026. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
Speaking to Fox News Channel’s senior White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich on Saturday, Trump said, “We can’t tell them the plan. If I told them the plan, it would be almost as bad as telling you the plan; in fact, it might be worse.” he said.
“But look, the plan is [Iran is] Trump continued: “We’re talking to us and we’ll see if we can do something. If not, we’ll see what happens. … We’ve got a big fleet heading out there, bigger than what we had in Venezuela and actually still have.”
The speaker of Iran’s parliament on Sunday said the Islamic Republic now considers all European Union armies as terrorist groups after the bloc declared the country’s paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist group over its crackdown on nationwide protests.
Iran invoked the law again in 2019 to designate other nations’ militaries as terrorist groups, after the United States designated the Guard as a terrorist organization that year.
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President Donald Trump leaves after the Peace Board initiative signing ceremony at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)
The announcement by former Revolutionary Guard commander Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf comes as the Islamic Republic plans real-time military drills on Sunday and Monday in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which nearly a fifth of the world’s oil trade passes.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
