The US president has slammed Iran’s “Truth Social” proposal amid growing uncertainty over a fragile ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump has warned that Iran “needs to get smart soon” after Iran’s proposal to postpone a deal on Iran’s nuclear program.
“Iran cannot get its act together,” President Trump wrote on his platform Truth Social on Wednesday. “They don’t know how to sign a nuclear-free agreement. They better get smarter soon!”
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The president attached a photo of himself carrying an AI-generated assault rifle and a bomb exploding on a mountainside behind him. Above the image was a banner that read, “NO MORE MR. NICE GUY!”
The threat comes days after the president canceled the latest round of talks with Iran and amid heightened uncertainty over the fragile U.S.-Iran ceasefire.
The U.S. government said it was considering Tehran’s proposal, but the response was reportedly lukewarm, with the White House stressing that Trump was “in no rush to make a bad deal” and that “Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.”
“Fierce competition”
Rob Geist-Pinfold, a lecturer on international security at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that “we have passed the stage of physical warfare” but that both Tehran and Trump are in the stage of “intense competition”.
“Both sides are basically trying to tell the other that they are more resilient and that time is on their side,” Pinfold said.
Tehran’s proposal would “put all difficult issues on the back burner” in favor of ending the war and reopening the Strait of Hormuz.
“[But this tactic]simply doesn’t work for the Americans, because they feel that if they basically give up the leverage that they have, the influence of physical force, then the war can start again,” Pinfold added.
Meanwhile, Washington claims it has put additional financial pressure on Tehran.
U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in a post on X late Tuesday that he is “targeting Iran’s international shadow banking infrastructure, access to cryptocurrencies, shadow fleet, and arms procurement network.”
Last week, the Treasury Department sanctioned an independent Chinese refinery for purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Iranian crude oil, as well as 40 shipping companies and vessels allegedly operating as part of Iran’s shadow fleet.
Bessent claimed that these actions had “disrupted tens of billions of dollars in revenue” and led to a “rapid” depreciation of Iran’s currency.
On Wednesday, the Iranian rial fell to an all-time low against the US dollar, losing about 6 percent of its value since the start of the war.
On the black market, the rial was trading at about 1.8 million rials against the dollar, according to currency tracking websites Bombast and Alan Chand.
When the war began at the end of February, the dollar was trading at about 1.7 million rials.
Iran executes and jails protesters
As negotiations stall, Iranian authorities have stepped up efforts to prosecute protesters and dissidents.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk said on Wednesday that at least 21 people have been executed and more than 4,000 arrested since the start of the war against Iran.
Nine people were executed in connection with mass protests in Iran in January, the agency said, including 10 on suspicion of being part of a rebel group and two on suspicion of being a spy.
“We are appalled by the severe and brutal manner in which the rights of Iranian citizens continue to be stripped away by the authorities, on top of the already severe effects of the conflict,” Turk said.
According to the United Nations, many of the 4,000 people arrested have disappeared, been subjected to torture or other illegal punishments.
Iran’s newly strengthened espionage laws allow authorities to execute people and seize property accused of a wide range of activities related to “hostile states or groups.”
