In an interview with NBC on Sunday, hours before the flare-up, he reiterated his view that a deal with Iran was “very close”.
After it, he framed Israel and Iran in a similarly dismissive light, saying each had had “their fun” and now it was time for the talks.
Iranian leaders appear emboldened by the outcome of the confrontation.
President Masoud Pezeshkian suggested Iran’s military strikes on Israel strengthened its negotiating position with the US.
He called “diplomacy and defence” the “two wings of national power”.
“We have neither abandoned the field nor the negotiating table,” he posted on social media.
Iran’s economy is under massive pressure, worsened by the US naval blockade of its ports.
Its leadership wants at least two things from the negotiations with Washington as a priority.
One is access to money, in the form of sanctions relief and the unfreezing of tens of billions of dollars from its oil revenues.
The other is to limit Israeli escalation against Hezbollah in Lebanon, as it sees Hezbollah as deterring further Israeli strikes against itself.
Given the pressures on the US economy from high oil prices caused by Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, in a US midterm election year, Tehran is likely to have sensed that Trump’s appetite for risk is currently low (although each further escalation may be pushing his patience).
That means Iran is likely to keep trying to push its two points up the agenda, to try to “front load” sanctions relief and unfreezing assets in the proposed deal with the US, sensing Trump is keener to get an agreement than to return to war.
Trump was asked in his interview on Sunday if he would unfreeze any Iranian assets or lift any sanctions upfront as a part of a deal.
His answer: “No.”
That might be one reason there’s still no agreement.
But the chance remains significant of growing destabilisation in the region potentially pushing the US and Iran into another round of direct fighting.