Trump Signals Openness to Iran Deal—But With Red Lines Firmly in Place

Speaking in Saudi Arabia, the former president strikes a familiar balance: hardline rhetoric with a hint of diplomacy

Former President Donald Trump, during a speech in Saudi Arabia over the weekend, said he’s open to cutting a new deal with Iran—but only if Tehran agrees to a list of stringent demands, including a full stop to its support for regional militias and a verifiable end to its nuclear ambitions.

“I want to make a deal with Iran,” Trump told an audience that included Gulf officials and business leaders. “I want to do something if possible. But for that to happen, it must stop sponsoring terror, halt its bloody proxy wars, and permanently and verifiably cease its pursuit of nuclear weapons. They cannot have a nuclear weapon.”

That last sentence—they cannot have a nuclear weapon—sounded final. And familiar. It echoes a position he’s held since at least 2015, when the original Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was still in place.

A second Trump term and the ghosts of 2018

What Trump didn’t say outright—but what was hard to ignore—is that this speech might be a prelude to a second term foreign policy reset. After all, it was Trump who unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, a move widely criticized by international observers and U.S. allies for destabilizing an already fragile region.

Since then, Iran has resumed high-level uranium enrichment and, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), is closer to breakout capacity than it was at any time in recent memory. So the stakes, in 2025, are arguably even higher.

And yet, here’s Trump—signaling a willingness, at least rhetorically, to negotiate. Which raises an uncomfortable question: Would a second Trump administration seek to revive something like the JCPOA, albeit under a different name and with much more aggressive conditions?

Hard to say. Trump tends to frame diplomacy as a transactional, winner-takes-most exchange. If Iran walks away, he blames them. If they return to talks, he claims victory. It’s not necessarily about lasting agreements—it’s about the performance of negotiation itself.

Abraham Accords redux? Possibly. But Iran is the outlier

What adds a layer of complexity here is that Trump paired his comments on Iran with a renewed pitch for expanding the Abraham Accords—the normalization agreements his administration helped broker between Israel and several Arab nations.

Trump said he wants “to add more countries” to that framework. That sounds like a continuation of what many foreign policy analysts viewed as his most consequential (and, some would argue, surprisingly effective) diplomatic achievement.

But Iran was never part of that calculus. In fact, one could argue the Abraham Accords were partly because of Iran—that is, a collective hedge by Gulf states against a shared adversary.

So the idea of bringing Iran into the conversation, while continuing to rally Arab states under an anti-Iranian security umbrella, feels… contradictory. Or maybe just wildly ambitious.

Real diplomacy or campaign theater?

To be honest, this reminds me a little of Trump’s approach to North Korea: fiery threats followed by flashy summits, but not much in the way of enduring change. His critics would argue that Iran is different—deeper history, higher stakes, and far more tangled alliances.

Others, particularly in conservative foreign policy circles, believe Trump’s unpredictability is a kind of strategic asset. “Maximum pressure“—the cornerstone of his Iran policy—didn’t topple the regime, but it did hobble Iran’s economy and arguably brought Tehran to the brink of new talks in 2020, before COVID and the U.S. election upended the calendar.

The bottom line: plenty of signals, few specifics

So, is Trump serious about a new Iran deal? Maybe. But if we take him at his word, there are clear conditions—and they’re not small asks. Stop funding proxies like Hezbollah, abandon nuclear enrichment, open your doors to international inspectors… it’s a tall order.

But even raising the possibility of diplomacy, however conditional, is newsworthy. Particularly when it comes from someone who once promised to “tear up” the very concept of a deal.

And with Iran reportedly still enriching uranium beyond JCPOA limits, the question isn’t whether diplomacy is desirable—it’s whether there’s any real runway left. We’ll know more as campaign season unfolds. Or maybe we won’t. With Trump, clarity isn’t always the point.