Ayatollah Shuts Door On Negotiations With US After Trump Restores ‘Maximum Pressure’

Iran’s top cleric who oversees the state, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei appears to have shut the door on opening new negotiations with Washington in the wake of fresh Trump-ordered sanctions intended to disrupt Iran’s oil network and to take exports “down to zero”.

“First, negotiations with the US have no effect on solving [Iran’s] problems. The reason? Experience!” Khamenei said on Friday. He explained that during the Obama presidency, “we sat down and negotiated with the US for about two years, and an agreement was formed. In this agreement, the Iranian side was very generous and gave many concessions to the other side.”

During Trump’s first term, he unilaterally pulled the US from the ‘bad’ JCPOA nuclear deal, which happened in April 2018 – after which a “maximum pressure” campaign was imposed on Tehran. Trump this week revived this pressure campaign via ramped-up sanctions.

Khamenei continued, “But the US did not carry out that agreement. The same person who is now in office tore up that agreement. We must learn from this experience.”

He then emphasized, “One must not negotiate with a government like the US government. Negotiations with it is not wise, it is not intelligent, and is not honorable.”

Many critics of Trump’s Iran policy back in 2018 warned that the Iranians would never be able to trust Washington again if a deal to end the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program is dangled in front of Tehran.

The basics of the JCPOA were that Iran would limit its nuclear energy program, agree to routine inspections, and in return US-led sanctions would be lifted.

The US is now worried that given last year’s tit-for-tat exchange of major strikes with Israel, Tehran leaders are more incentivized than ever to secretly develop a nuke.

However, the CIA has long assessed, even recently, that Iran’s leadership has not yet ordered the pursuit of a bomb. The Ayatollahs throughout the decades have also condemned atomic weapons as ‘unIslamic’.

Supreme Leader Khamenei seems to be favoring the hardliners, who’ve long argued that dealing with Washington is futile…

#Khamenei: Negotiations file closed
︎ Friday speech to #Iranian military
︎ “Reformists” appear not to be present#Iran #Trump #Sanctions #JCPOA #Nuclear pic.twitter.com/8iTm7Fhg6k

— Shivan Mahendrarajah (@S_Mahendrarajah) February 7, 2025

Officially at least, Iran’s nuclear program remains for peaceful energy purposes for the needs of the domestic population. But Israel has long charged that this is but a cover, and US Congressional hawks agree with this allegation.