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  • 5/14/2025
Speaking at a Saudi-US Investment Forum in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, President Trump spoke about Iran's effort to develop nuclear weapons.
Transcript
00:00Our task is to unify against the few agents of chaos and terror that are left and that
00:06are holding hostage the dreams of millions and millions of great people.
00:11The biggest and most destructive of these forces is the regime in Iran, which has caused
00:17unthinkable suffering in Syria, Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Yemen, and beyond.
00:23There could be no sharper contrast with the path you have pursued on the Arabian Peninsula
00:29than the disaster unfolding right across in the Gulf of Iran.
00:36Think of that.
00:38They wanted to name it that.
00:39I said, they're not going to let them do that.
00:41Do you mind if I stop that?
00:43I stopped it.
00:44We're not going to let that happen.
00:48While you have been constructing the world's tallest skyscrapers in Jeddah and Dubai, Tehran's
00:591979 landmarks are collapsing into rubble and dust.
01:04They had it going for a little while under a much different system.
01:08But those buildings are largely falling apart, falling down, while you're building some of
01:14the world's biggest and most incredible infrastructure projects.
01:18buildings.
01:19All sorts of things you're building that nobody's ever even seen before.
01:24Iran's decades of neglect and mismanagement have left the country plagued by rolling blackouts
01:29lasting for hours a day, all the time you hear about it.
01:34While your skill has turned dry deserts into fertile farmland, Iran's leaders have managed
01:39to turn green farmland into dry deserts as their corrupt water mafia, let's call it the
01:46water mafia, causes droughts and empty riverbeds.
01:50They get rich, but they don't let the people have any of it.
01:55And then, of course, there's the key difference at the root of it all.
01:59While the Arab states are focused on becoming pillars of regional stability and world commerce,
02:04Iran's leaders have focused on stealing their people's wealth to fund terror and bloodshed
02:10abroad.
02:11The most tragic of all, they have dragged down an entire region with them.
02:17Countless lives were lost in the Iranian effort to maintain a crumbling regime in Syria.
02:24Look at what happened with Syria.
02:26In Lebanon, their Hezbollah proxies have pillaged the hopes of a nation whose capital, Beirut, was
02:34once called the Paris of the Middle East.
02:38Can you imagine?
02:39All of this misery and so much more was entirely avoidable, absolutely avoidable.
02:46And Mohammed knew that.
02:48He knew that.
02:49Smart people knew that.
02:51If only the Iranian regime had focused on building their nation up instead of tearing
02:56the region down.
02:58But I'm here today not merely to condemn the past chaos of Iran's leaders, but to offer
03:04them a new path and a much better path toward a far better and more hopeful future.
03:11As I have shown repeatedly, I am willing to end past conflicts and forge new partnerships
03:16for a better and more stable world, even if our differences may be very profound, which
03:21obviously they are in the case of Iran.
03:24I have never believed in having permanent enemies.
03:28I am different than a lot of people think.
03:31I don't like permanent enemies.
03:33But sometimes you need enemies to do the job, and you have to do it right.
03:39Enemies get you motivated.
03:40In fact, some of the closest friends of the United States of America are nations we fought
03:46wars against in generations past.
03:49Now they're our friends and our allies.
03:52I want to make a deal with Iran.
03:54If I can make a deal with Iran, I'll be very happy if we're going to make your region and
03:59the world a safer place.
04:01But if Iran's leadership rejects this olive branch and continues to attack their neighbors,
04:06then we will have no choice but to inflict massive maximum pressure, drive Iranian oil exports
04:14to zero, like I did before.
04:18If you know that, they were a virtually bankrupt country because of what I did.
04:24They had no money for terror.
04:26They had no money for Hamas or Hezbollah.
04:29And take all action required to stop the regime from ever having a nuclear weapon.
04:35Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.
04:45But with that said, Iran can have a much brighter future, but will never allow America and its
04:51allies to be threatened with terrorism or nuclear attack.
04:55The choice is theirs to make.
04:57We really want them to be a successful country.
05:00We want them to be a wonderful, safe, great country.
05:03But they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
05:06This is an offer that will not last forever.
05:10The time is right now for them to choose.
05:13Right now, we don't have a lot of time to wait.
05:17Things are happening at a very fast pace.
05:19They're happening right here.
05:21They're happening at a very fast pace.
05:23So they have to make their move right now.
05:27One way or the other, make your move.
05:29As I said in my inaugural address, my greatest hope is to be a peacemaker and to be a unifier.
05:36I don't like war.
05:38We have the greatest military, by the way, in the history of the world.
05:41You know, I rebuilt our military in my first four years and rebuilt it into the most powerful
05:48military there is.
05:51And you saw that when I knocked out ISIS in three weeks.
05:53People said it would take four years, five years.
05:55I did it.
05:56We did it in three weeks.

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