Trump says US will 'finish the job' against Iran, 'peacefully or otherwise'

If Iran does not accept US terms for a deal to end the war and address its nuclear program, the United States will “finish the job,” US President Donald Trump declared on Tuesday.

“They’ll either do the right thing, or we’ll finish the job,” he said before taking off for a high-stakes trip to China, which maintains ties with Iran and remains a major consumer of its oil exports.

Trump rejected 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 said. “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 continued. “Every American understands it. If the stock market goes up or down a little bit, the American people understand it.”

Ahead of his meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in Beijing, Trump said he did not think he would need to enlist China to resolve the conflict with Iran, which has continued to bottle up maritime traffic that normally provides one-fifth of the world’s oil supply.

“I don’t think we need any help with Iran. We’ll win it one way or the other, peacefully or otherwise,” Trump said. “No matter how you cut it, we win.”

Trump claimed 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 a lot of things to discuss. I wouldn’t say Iran is one of them, to be honest with you, because we have Iran very much under control.” Trump insisted. “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 said that the Pakistanis “have been great” mediators.