Several Arab nations are lining up to join the Abraham Accords with Israel now that Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged, President Trump says. 

“We have some really great countries in there right now and I think we’re going to start loading them up because Iran was the primary problem,” the president told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo in an interview taped on Friday. 

With 12 days of bombings by Israel and America that appear to have dismantled, or at the very least set back, Iran’s nuclear program, Tehran told the International Atomic Energy Agency last week that it would no longer cooperate with the nuclear watchdog. Mr. Trump said he was not worried about that decision. 

“The last thing they’re going to be doing right now, for a period of time at least, is nuclear. They’ve had it. They’ve been trying for the last 25 years,” he said. “They might not give up on it, but they’re going to give up for a while. They are exhausted.” 

The president could not say whether Syria would join the accords, but that he lifted sanctions to give Damascus a chance to prove itself after the fall of Bashar al-Assad. Syria had been ground zero for sponsoring proxy fighters funded by Iran prior to the fall of the Assad regime. Saudi Arabia had encouraged the rapprochement.

“I gave the expression today that you get more honey sometimes than you do with vinegar,” he said. “I lifted the sanctions at the request of some of the countries in the area that are friends of ours.”

The Abraham Accords were first negotiated in 2020 during Mr. Trump’s first term. Israel established diplomatic relations with key Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, as part of the agreement. Morocco later joined and Sudan agreed to normalize relations though it has not ratified the accord. 

The largest potential partner in the accords is Saudi Arabia, whose crown prince has suggested that a future normalization could occur as a bulwark against Iran. However, with the diminishment of Iran’s capabilities, Saudi Arabia and other nations may feel less pressure to reach a peace agreement with Israel. 

Also incumbent on any future accord may be cessation of fighting between Hamas and Israel. Mr. Trump announced Friday that a peace deal could be brokered soon. The Israeli Defense Forces announced Saturday that it had eliminated a key target in the Hamas organization, senior military figure Hakham Muhammad Issa Al-Issa, who was said to have helped orchestrate the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, and had been trying to rebuild Hamas. On Sunday, Mr. Trump took to Truth Social to call for a return of the hostages. 

“MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!” he wrote.

Mr. Trump said that while there had been a time when he had thought Iran itself may join the Abraham Accords, for now, he could consider reducing sanctions on Iran in order to give Tehran the chance to recover. 

“One of the things I was thinking about doing is to start waiving them for countries … if they behave themselves like Iran, where they can sell oil and they can do the things that they want to be able to do. The sanctions are very powerful, and it makes it difficult,” he said. “ I’m not looking to make it difficult. I want them to have a good life, but they were trying to develop a bomb and the reason they were trying to develop a bomb like that is to use it.”