US President Donald Trump waves as he returns to the White House in Washington, DC, after playing golf at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, on May 31, 2026.
Brendan Smialowski AFP | Getty Images
US President Donald Trump on Monday slammed critics as the possibility of a deal with Iran remained elusive, saying Iran “really wants a deal” and that it would be a good deal for the US and its allies.
His comments came as airstrikes between the United States and Iran resumed over the weekend, with both sides claiming to have hit military targets near the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz. The Strait of Hormuz is a waterway that typically handles about 20% of the world’s oil shipments.
“Iran really wants a deal, and it would be a good deal for the United States and our partners,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“But don’t Democrats and various seemingly unpatriotic Republicans understand that it’s much more difficult to do my job properly and negotiate whether I should move faster or move slower or go to war or not go to war or whatever, while political hacks continue to ‘squeal’ negatively over and over again at levels never seen before?” Trump said.
“Just sit back and relax, everything will work out in the end, it always does!”
Over the weekend, U.S. Central Command said it had carried out “self-defense strikes” against Iranian radar and drone command and control facilities on Gork and Qeshm islands, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it had targeted air bases used in the U.S. attacks in retaliation.
According to an Axios report released Saturday, President Trump has requested several modifications to the latest terms the envoys agreed to with Iranian officials. The report cited a government official and another person briefed on the matter. CNBC could not independently verify this report.
The US president has repeatedly said Washington and Tehran are close to a deal since the ceasefire took effect in early April, but talks have made little progress in recent weeks.
Guntram Wolff, a senior researcher at Brussels-based economic think tank Bruegel, said market participants were “too optimistic” about the prospects for a diplomatic breakthrough.
“The problem is that we’ve been promised a good deal for a long time and it’s been more than 90 days,” Wolff told CNBC’s “Europe Early Edition” on Monday.
“We understand that it will take time to get a really solid deal, but have the fundamentals changed? No, they haven’t. Iran continues to have significant capabilities to do great damage, it can continue to control the Strait of Hormuz, it still has nuclear enriched material, so the fundamentals have not changed.”
