President Trump Sets The Record Straight On Iran’s Missile Arsenal: ‘Doesn’t Work That Way’

Among the disputed details emerging from negotiations to end the military operation in Iran is the claim that the nation will be left with a trove of missiles when all is said and done.

President Donald Trump has been addressing rumors and half-truths related to the recently signed agreement for days, including this one.

Here’s what The Hill reported:

The president said during a Group of Seven (G7) press conference in France that the U.S. will be working with Persian Gulf allies in addressing issues not related to Iran’s nuclear program, including the conventional missile program, but noted that Tehran will still have some ballistic missiles left. 

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“I mean, they have to have some, because other people have some. You got to have some,” Trump said. 

“I like some of these guys, but I … don’t think they’re smart. ‘Sir, you shouldn’t let them have any missile,’” the president said of unnamed advisers. “I said, ‘well, what am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can’t have them?’ ‘Yes, sir.’”  

“Doesn’t work that way, you know, it doesn’t work that way, and missiles aren’t the problem,” he said. “Missiles, they hurt a little location, but they don’t blow up the planet.” 

As with countless other remarks in the past, Trump’s critics were quick to take his comment out of context to demonize him.

Plenty of others, however, took the time to actually interpret what he was saying:

He’s right. Also unrealistic to expect Iran to unilaterally disarm

— Carlos Euler (@ca_euler) June 17, 2026

1. read out of context headline.
2. create own interpretation in your head.
3. don't look up full interview to clarify reference.
4. instead, throw tantum on social media.

— indoorRabbit (@indoorRabbitx) June 17, 2026

He’s not wrong though. What country has no missiles?

— The Consistent Man (@_consistent_man) June 17, 2026

Here’s what else the president had to say to his critics, per Politico:

“There’s not one nation that came to us and said ‘please keep dropping bombs on them, please keep dropping bombs’ — the stupid people say that,” Trump said at the the close of the G7 summit in Évian-les-Bains, France. “The one thing I didn’t want to see is, I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe. … Every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship.”

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Trump’s forceful denunciation of critics, including some in his own party, underscores the pressure his administration is under to sell an agreement that on its face fails to live up to many of the objectives the president laid out over the four-month war.

The deal does not explicitly address whether Iran gets to keep its ballistic missiles and the country would be allowed to have a nuclear program for civilian purposes, Trump said, calling both “common sense.”

Here’s a clip of some of Trump’s G7 remarks: