U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that understandings reached with Iran through Pakistan on June 17 were “sort of a test,” adding that Tehran “didn’t honor the test.”
“It was built to test. We didn’t know,” Trump said in a phone interview with the Salem News Channel.
.@POTUS on the MOU with Iran: "It was a test. We didn't know. Look, memorandums of understanding when you're dealing with sleaze bags don't mean much... it was sort of a test, and they weren't there. They didn't honor the test." pic.twitter.com/WcnbVaLI5t
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 13, 2026
“Look, memorandums of understanding when you’re dealing with sleazebags don’t mean much,” the president continued. “They don’t mean much when you’re dealing with honorable people too, because it’s a memorandum of understanding—it doesn’t mean much.”
“You know, it’s a standard tactic in the U.S. that you go to a memorandum of understanding and then you go to the deal,” said Trump. “I said, just go to the deal first. But you know what, it was sort of a test, and they weren’t there.”
Trump said Iran “never followed it.”
“These people are crazy,” he told the outlet.
To the Iranian regime, “deals are made to be broken,” Trump continued. He added, “They are extremely unreliable people—and, frankly, if they ever had a nuclear weapon they’d use it within one day.”
Trump ordered more strikes against Iranian regime sites on Monday in response to the Islamic Republic’s attacks on civilian-manned commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz.
The president also told Fox News that the United States would be “taking over” the strategic shipping lane.
“We’re taking over the strait. They [the leaders of the Iranian regime] have nothing,” Trump said in a phone interview.
“Yesterday, they had an 11-hour meeting. Everything’s 11 hours with these guys,” the president continued. “Everything was agreed to yesterday. And they leave the room, and they call back, and they say, ‘We had to make a couple of changes.’ I said, ‘Changes? They’re going to make changes? We’re not going to make changes.’
“For 47 years, they’ve been tapping presidents along. Every president got tapped along, didn’t do anything, and they became more and more powerful. This should have been done 47 years ago. It shouldn’t have been allowed to start,” Trump said.
