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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomes President Trump upon his arrival at Etimesgut Air Base near Ankara, Turkey, on July 7 before attending the NATO summit. Abdullah Guclu/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
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Abdullah Guclu/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump said Wednesday he believes the current ceasefire with Iran is over after an exchange of attacks between the U.S. and Iran, the latest escalation straining the agreement to end the war.
"I think it's over. I don't want to deal with them anymore. They're scum," Trump told reporters in Ankara, where he is attending the NATO summit.
He called the Iranian leaders "vicious, violent people."
"If they had a nuclear weapon, they'd use it," he added.
Trump, however, did not rule out talks continuing to permanently end the war with Iran.
He said the top U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, want to negotiate.
But, Trump added, "as far as I'm concerned, it's just a waste of time dealing with them. They're liars."
There was no immediate response from the Iranian government.
His comments came after the U.S. and Iran traded attacks again overnight Wednesday, the second such escalation since the two sides signed an interim deal in mid-June.
The strikes followed Tuesday's attacks on three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. said it carried out strikes on Iranian targets in what it said was retaliation for the previous Iranian aggression. Iranian Revolutionary Guard said it responded to those strikes by launching missiles and drones against Kuwait and Bahrain, two Arab Gulf countries that host U.S. military bases.
Trump is in Ankara, Turkey, to attend the NATO summit, where he has continued to air grievances, lamenting that European countries don't contribute enough to their own defense spending, as Russia's war against Ukraine has dragged on.
He has also expressed frustration since the U.S. and Israel's war with Iran began that Europe hasn't been supportive enough of his agenda.
Earlier in the day, the president said he was "testing" allies on how they'd help with the war.
"Italy turned us down, and Germany turned us down, and France turned us down, and it's OK, but you know, why are we spending hundreds of billions of dollars and they're not there for us? We've always been there for them," Trump said.
The tension between Trump and NATO nations has also grown as the president continued on Tuesday to insist that the U.S. should have control of Greenland, a territory currently under Denmark.
Despite friction in the alliance, at the gathering Trump has discussed some issues important to him related to the U.S.-Israel-led war in Iran, such as increased defense spending and logistics around opening the Strait of Hormuz.
And as the two-day summit ends, Trump is expected to take questions during a Wednesday press conference.
The brief two-day gathering typically left little time for one-on-one meetings, but Trump was expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the gathering. Negotiating an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine has been an elusive goal for Trump, who has teased recently that the end of the war is "getting closer," without providing much further detail. He also said he recently spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
On Tuesday, Trump met with the leader of the host nation, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whom he considers a friend. The two discussed the U.S. potentially selling F-35 fighter jets to Turkey — despite there being a congressional ban in place that prevents this.
"We have a very good relationship. … Why wouldn't we do that?" Trump said in his meeting with Erdogan.
Tina Kraja in Washington, D.C., contributed reporting to this story.
